


How To Catch An Angel

by lotusk



Series: How To Catch An Angel [5]
Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band), f(x)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angels, Demonhunter Kyungsoo, Demons, Falling From a Great Height, Friendship, Frottage, Gods, Hand Jobs, M/M, Magic, Making Out, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Romance, Sassy Jongin, Skinny Dipping, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Tsundere Kyungsoo, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Urban Fantasy, angel jongin, bffs sekailu, demonhunters, dicks there's talk about dicks, references to mild claustrophobia, references to mild fear of heights, references to wounds, side xiuhan, these are warrior angels who are anything but celibate jsyk what you're getting yourself into, warrior angels, weapon mages
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-07-24 09:29:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7503090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotusk/pseuds/lotusk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo aims his arrow at a demon and shoots down a golden-winged angel instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Your Usual Angels

**Author's Note:**

> My love and sincerest thanks to the Exordium Mod for her compassion and understanding with regard to multiple personal issues in recent months which have sucked up much valuable writing time and creativity. I would have given up on this project if not for her words of encouragement and her belief in my ability to finish this story.
> 
> A fist bump to all my "regular" sprint room peeps who help to keep me going always: Reeza, Bunny, Ash, Ansa, Gem, Ezrae, and also to Jenni and Shanti, who don't sprint with me but inspire me in other ways. ILY guys so much!
> 
> To my readers who have stuck with me over the years, THANK YOU. For _everything_. My thanks also go out to those of you on tlist who have patiently listened to me whine about exordium, and who have given me mugs upon mugs of warm support. I couldn't have done any of this without you, you guys are the best! 
> 
> The first two chapters of this fic will have some unavoidable info dump and I apologize for that. But this is an original au so I need to provide some backdrop. I hope you'll be patient and give this story a chance anyway. I tried my best to work the info into the narrative as unobtrusively as possible but please forgive me if it ends up being obtrusive anyway otl. 
> 
> I came up with the idea for this fic back in 2013 but it's sadly taken me more than three years to get round to writing it. I'm nervous as all hell because this is only my second attempt at writing urban fantasy and definitely my first attempt at writing one that requires this much world building. It's rough around the edges (and even the middle lol) but I hope you'll explore this world of angels and demons with me!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of warrior angels and soulmarks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to do a fair bit of world building in the first couple chapters so I hope you'll be patient with the info dump and give this story a chance!

  
  
**_Prologue_ **   
  
_The first warrior angels were created by Veritas, the God of Truth, in order to protect the safety of the citizens of Orbis who worshipped Veritas and his sister Lux, the Goddess of Light. Human beings lacked the physical strength and superhuman speed required to fight off the winged demons that swooped down from the skies and fed on their souls. The foul creatures were the minions of Tenebris, the God of Darkness._

_Tenebris and Lux were twins, opposite sides of the same coin. Light and Darkness, Darkness and Light. But while Lux was well-loved by the citizens of Orbis for her wisdom and benevolence, her twin brother was widely regarded with fear and apprehension. It did not help matters at all that Tenebris was harsh and temperamental and kept himself isolated from his followers. He had always walked a different path from his siblings. Tenebris was ruthless, competitive and deeply resentful of Lux and Veritas’ popularity among the people of Orbis._

_As the legends told it, eight months before the inception of the warrior angels and demonhunters, Tenebris’ priests had discovered a book of spells—one that held the key to the Demon Realm which lay in the inaccessible Vetitum Region in the frozen North. Two months later, Tenebris had launched a series of bloody campaigns against the feral demons. His human followers were virtually useless against the powerful demons, but Tenebris had fifty war mages under his command. For four days, Tenebris and his war mages had pummeled the demons with magical warfare. If the god himself had not joined the battle, it might have taken weeks for the mages to capture the Demon Realm. That is, assuming the war mages would even have survived their conflict with the vicious and tenacious demons._

_By midnight of the fourth day, Tenebris had lost more than half his mages and hundreds of demons had been reduced to piles of smoldering ash. But the Demon Realm was, at last, his to command and it had been his power base since. But holding demon territory was not enough for the God Tenebris. Having the unquestioning servitude of thousands of demons would never be enough to satiate his thirst for power and dominion. Tenebris would not relent until he had wrestled Orbis from his siblings Lux and Veritas. With that goal in mind, he had opened the gates of the Demon Realm and begun unleashing his newly acquired demons on the defenceless citizens of Orbis._

_Veritas had had no choice but to create the first generation of warrior angels. Meanwhile, Lux had created a race of demonhunters to fight alongside her older brother’s warrior angels. Demonhunters were humans imbued with superior strength, enhanced reflexes and the ability to wield magical weapons. With the creation of these special beings, Lux and Veritas were able to offer protection to the people of Orbis on both planes: sky and earth._

**Excerpt from _The Historical Chronicles of Orbis, Volume I_**

  
  


✾

  
  
  
  
**_The Great Hall of Angels_ **  
  
The Great Hall of Angels was a place where one spoke in hushed, respectful voices. So even when there were tens upon tens of angels within its walls, the place never got truly noisy. Multiple pockets of space were decorated with comfortable sofas and wingback chairs upholstered in soft, muted colors. Here, pods of angels could converse or debate or just unwind—Jongin and his friends just happened to be occupying one of those nooks at the moment.

"Oi,” Luhan said in a voice that was neither hushed nor respectful as he nudged Jongin’s ankle with his foot. Luhan had a penchant for well-made things and it was no surprise to Jongin that the boot pressing against his skin was made of soft, quality suede. Probably calfskin. And probably expensive. You could always count on Luhan’s clothing and footwear to be horrendously expensive. 

"What?" Jongin asked, forcing himself to sound calm and indifferent. It was the only way to deal with Luhan. 

“You look like someone in need of a distraction," Luhan announced. His face and expression could be deceptively innocent but Jongin had been friends with him long enough to know that there was nothing remotely innocent about Luhan. "More specifically, you look like you need to get laid."

A bored, female voice floated up from the depths of a mint green wingback chair, "Must you be so vulgar?"

"Angels have sexual urges, Soojung. No matter how much you like to pretend that they don't," Luhan replied, one sardonic eyebrow raised. 

"I do not pretend any such thing,” Soojung argued as she braided her waist-length, chestnut hair in swift, graceful movements, “I just don't feel the need to discuss Jongin's sex life in the Great Hall. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”

"I have to admit," Jongin said, as he eyed Luhan with exasperation, "I would be infinitely grateful, Luhan, if you’d refrain from shouting out my personal business from one end of the Great Hall to the other. My sex life or lack thereof, is nobody’s business but my own.” Jongin sighed, the feathers on his golden wings undulating with annoyance. He and Luhan were members of the same pod, together with Soojung, Seulgi, Sehun, and Luhan’s twin sister Joohyun. In their tight little unit, Luhan was the undisputed shit stirrer. He could be a fucking menace but life was never dull with him around. Jongin would know; they’d been best friends for close to ten years now. 

"I’m just trying to help,” Luhan protested with the most unconvincing look of feigned sincerity Jongin had ever seen.

“I. Don’t. Need. Help.”

“Don’t be an ass, Luhan,” Joohyun scoffed. “ _You’re_ the one who’s bored. _You’re_ the one who needs a distraction, not Jongin. Just as well I can provide you with one. They’re expecting demon activity in the Garnet Forest. You can be my able wingman.” With grim purpose, she tugged her reluctant twin off the frangipani white, jacquard sofa he’d been lounging on. 

“Why are you making it sound like I have a choice here?” Luhan growled and Joohyun’s only reply was a serene smile. The angels received their assignments from the Strategy Department via email so they were always informed of where they would be on combat duty on any given night, at least six hours in advance. 

Luhan had told Jongin a while back that he never bothered to open his emails from the Strategy Department. What was the point when Joohyun would just update him on the contents anyway. Jongin had shaken his head at this and asked what if the Strategy Department sent him emails that were only pertinent to him—emails that weren’t forwarded to Joohyun? Luhan had just shrugged, saying that if it were that urgent, they knew where to find him. Maybe one day, Jongin would be able to comprehend Luhan’s cavalier attitude towards the serious things in life. He couldn’t really see it happening but maybe one day.

They were mirrors of each other, Luhan and Joohyun, with the same translucent skin and eyes that hinted at mischief and flirtatiousness. The twins had identical, pale lavender wings with tips that looked as if they'd been dipped in buckets of dramatic violet paint. Their naturally wavy hair was a matching shade of violet, but while Luhan’s was kept short on the sides with bangs swept off his forehead, Joohyun’s hair hung down far beyond her shoulders. When she had to go on a flight mission, as was the case tonight, she kept her hair confined in a high ponytail weaved through with silver ribbon to restrict its movement. The last thing an angel wanted to deal with while dueling with demons was a faceful of hair in their eyes and mouth. 

Brother towered over sister by at least seven inches—not that the considerable height advantage intimidated Joohyun in the least. She was the younger by a matter of eight minutes, but most days, Joohyun behaved like she was the older sibling. Her ability to put Luhan in his place and tell him what to do kept him on his toes and provided Jongin and the others in their pod with hours of entertainment.

“You don’t need a wingman. Nothing ever happens in the Garnet Forest and the nearest town is miles away! Not like demons are gonna be plucking humans off the field for fuck’s sake.” Luhan grumbled bitterly but he allowed Joohyun to drag him away. He could protest all he liked and claim reluctance to join a hunt, but Luhan was first and foremost, a warrior angel. Luhan could gripe all he wanted about having to get his ass over to the Garnet Forest, but he could no more resist the hunt than he could resist stirring shit.

Warrior angels lived to soar through the skies and wrestle with their vicious, winged adversaries. It was a need, an instinct that simmered beneath their skin and angels felt most alive when they were flying or engaged in aerial battle. Already, Jongin’s skin was thrumming with anticipation, his scalp longing for the sensation of the cold wind coursing through his hair, his wings aching for the resistance of air currents. His body craved the exhilarating drop that fired his senses every time he dived off the flight deck. It wasn’t something angels could help. It had been written in their blood, encoded in their muscles when Veritas, the God of Truth, had created the first biologically enhanced warrior angels a century and a half ago.

The demon population had been multiplying at an alarming rate over the past two centuries and it was all the warrior angels and demonhunters could do to keep the numbers under control. But try they did, because unlike the physically vulnerable human beings who inhabited the earth plane, angels and demonhunters were genetically engineered to war with Tenebris’ minions. It was their biological imperative to protect the humans and to wipe out the demons. 

With Luhan and Joohyun's departure, their little corner of the Great Hall had gone very quiet. Jongin sometimes forgot just how noisy and boisterous Luhan could be until he actually vacated an area, leaving a vacuum in his wake. His thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of a comm unit. Soojung swung her waist-length braid over her shoulder before hooking on the sleek black ear loop and positioning the mic. She spoke in a low voice and nodded several times before ending the conversation. 

“Seulgi’s waiting at the flight deck. I have to go,” Soojung said as she gave him a quick hug and a light kiss on the cheek. "Be safe, Jonginnie and give my love to Sehun. I’ll see you both tomorrow. Peridot Valley awaits," she told him with a wry smile. Then she was taking long, elegant strides towards the exit. Vanilla white leather clung to her slender torso and thighs, her flat-heeled leather boots making hardly any sound on the granite flooring.

Jongin eyed her outfit and sighed. White was such a hopelessly impractical color for battle because caked blood and smoky black ichor could leave the worst fucking stains. Dark colors would have made so much more sense but there wasn't much that could be done about it. Veritas despised dark colors because they called to mind the darkling purple of the demons they warred with, and perhaps more significantly, Veritas associated dark colors with his long estranged brother. 

Tenebris never wore anything but black and the deepest shades of blue and green. Thus, the God of Truth would not tolerate anything but the palest hues on his warrior angels. Jongin took a critical look at the sleeveless, pebble colored leather vest and fitting pants he was wearing and thanked everything that was holy angels weren’t expected to deal with their own laundry. 

Now that Soojung had left the hall to meet up with Seulgi, her regular combat partner of four years, Jongin finally realized just how silent it was in the Great Hall. From his vantage point in the nook, he could see all four corners of the hall and the vast spaces were now empty of angels. It was almost sundown. The demons would begin pouring out of the Gates of the Demon Realm as soon as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. Dozens of angels had obviously vacated the premises earlier, heading either for patrols in designated areas or heading for a night off. 

Downtime in the Cerulean City usually meant heading to the Recreation District for a nice meal in one of eight restaurants, followed by drinks etcetera in any of five night clubs. These establishments were all run by retired angels—angels who had gotten weary of active battle after decades and decades of service. Angels tended to hang out with their own kind but there were the odd few who liked to spend time in the company of humans. 

Luhan was one such angel and even though Jongin had offered to accompany him on trips to Cynosura, the capital of Orbis, more than once, Luhan had been oddly. . .resistant to the idea. Jongin hadn't pushed it but he sometimes wondered if Luhan was seeing someone in the human city, someone he didn't want the rest of them finding out about. Luhan wasn't the sort to keep secrets, least of all from his best friends. But while he would gleefully overshare on most aspects of his life, he was consistently cagey about what he did in Cynosura and whom he saw while he was there. It was odd. Very odd indeed.

But there would be time enough to unravel that mystery some other day. It was getting late and he had to leave now if he was going to make it for his rendezvous with Sehun at the Opal Forest. Warrior angels worked in pairs or teams of four when they went on their nightly patrols, depending on the perceived threat. Jongin and Sehun had been regular partners for almost five years now. Prior to active duty, they'd trained together in the Battle Academy: Luhan, Sehun and him. And for five years, the three friends had assimilated the fight and flight skills they needed to war with demons.

When they graduated at the age of eighteen, they had done so with the knowledge that they might end up in different pods. Jongin was reserved by nature and didn’t make friends easily, but he knew that he would have sucked it up and made the best of things if he had ended up in a pod of complete strangers. Jongin would have somehow learned to trust his new teammates, would have somehow forced himself to build tentative friendships with them. Jongin would have coped because that was his quiet way of living his life. But as it turned out, Fate had been kind to him. He had been spared the ordeal of navigating a group of strangers when Headquarters decided to place Jongin, Luhan and Sehun in the same pod. 

Fate had continued to smile on Jongin as he’d found himself paired with Sehun for combat missions. Speaking of which, he really had to get his ass to the flight deck. Consulting his watch, he made a quick mental calculation on his estimated flight time. He needed to be at his destination in fifteen minutes but he could probably make the distance in twenty, as long as he started his journey now. Jongin's body was tingling at the prospect of ten minutes of sustained flight, his wings already beginning to unfold and stretch. They were always held as close to the body as possible when angels were on their feet, but once they were preparing to take to the air, their wings would lengthen and widen to their full span. 

Jongin was almost at the imposing entrance of the Great Hall when he felt a flurry of warm tingles cascade across the small section of skin on the inside of his left wrist. _What on earth?_ The sensations weren’t painful. In fact, they were almost pleasant and more than anything, they were _unexpected_ because the mark hadn’t done anything but lie on his skin for the past ten years, dormant, asleep. 

Stretching his left forearm out, palm facing up, Jongin examined the glimmering, silver arrow that had adorned the inside of his wrist since the day of his thirteenth birthday. Jongin had woken up that wintry morning, all bleary-eyed, to find a delicate, pale silver arrow etched into his skin. Like magic. The skin that cradled the soulmark had been tender to the touch, and just a little bit achey. For the whole of that first day, the soulmark had throbbed, gently reminding Jongin of its presence. He hadn’t enjoyed the pain but when he awoke the next morning to nothing but the quiet knowledge that his skin and his life were forever marked, he almost missed the pain.

 _Nothing_. He had felt nothing for ten years and suddenly the soulmark seemed to be waking up, seemed to be reminding Jongin of its existence. Was this some kind of warning flare? Was it a sign that he would meet his soulmate soon? Was he even ready for any of this? It was something he’d always shoved to the back of his mind—all this soulmates bullshit. He had his friends to hang out with and demons to battle. Who had time for this destiny crap? Definitely not him. All he asked was that he didn’t get saddled with an utter prick, and that he didn’t get saddled with anyone anytime soon.

Then his agitated train of thought was cut short by a second wave of frissons sweeping across the skin of his forearm. The sensations stopped just a shade short of erotic, leaving him breathless and confused. _What the hell was that?_ Were soulmarks supposed to behave this way? He’d never even heard of anyone’s soulmark getting them all worked up. Other than Sehun, who had met his soulmate Chanyeol six months back, none of Jongin’s friends were even soulbonded. Most of them were like him, hoping that if they pretended hard enough that soulbonds didn’t exist, the blasted bonds and marks would somehow vanish from their lives. So far, denial seemed to be working out just fine for Jongin and his friends. 

As for his parents, they’d become soulbonded in their mid-twenties. Jongin knew they had plenty of working knowledge about the mechanics of soulbonding, but he’d never felt like he could talk to his parents about anything even mildly intimate without dying of mortification. The books he’d read had only ever described soulmarks as being inert up until the very first time two soulmates came within a two mile radius of each other. This had to mean his soulmate was somewhere in the Cerulean City right now, didn’t it?

Sehun had told him about the intense prickling he’d felt on his wrist minutes before he and Chanyeol had actually set eyes on each other, but he had never said anything about his soulmark giving him pretty much the first step to a hard-on. Unless, of course, Sehun had decided it was something too embarrassing to share, even with your closest friend. Jongin couldn’t say he blamed Sehun for the possible non-disclosure. He was pretty damned sure _no one_ needed to know what had just happened with his soulmark. Anyway, it was probably just some one-off, freak occurrence. And maybe Luhan was right, maybe Jongin really needed to get laid. The past year of celibacy was probably making his mind and body imagine all kinds of phantom sensations.

His index finger traced the lines of the arrowhead, hoping for some kind of reaction from the soulmark, but his skin was quiescent. For now, at least. Jongin couldn’t help feeling just a little bit disappointed. If Fate had its way, there would be someone out there with a similar mark. He wondered if that person's soulmark was an arrow too, or a sword, a flower, or a bird of some kind. It could be literally _anything_ but a soulmark was usually connected in some way to the life of the person's soulmate. 

Jongin's soulmark was an arrow. Was his soulmate a weapon mage who crafted enchanted bows and arrows? A demonhunter who shot down demons with their arrows? An angel or a human who liked archery or maybe collected arrows as a hobby? Jongin had never met an angel with any such interests but then again, he had only met less than two hundred angels over the years, and there were no less than two thousand angels who inhabited the angel stronghold, Cerulean City, which lay suspended twenty thousand feet above Orbis. 

It wasn't important to him either way but Jongin sometimes wondered whether his soulmate would be male or female. He'd only had fleeting relationships with male angels but the soulbond didn't give a shit about “insignificant” things such as a person's sexual preferences or whether the soulmates would ever feel any kind of romantic love for each other. It was up to the soulmates to work out such inconsequential details. Sometimes things worked out and sometimes they didn’t. 

He’d heard stories about angels who had turned their backs on their soulmates. “Gnawing emptiness” and “indefinable sadness” were some of the phrases he remembered hearing and he couldn’t help frowning at the memory. Why did the Gods and Fate have to make things so fucking complicated for everyone? Why couldn’t they let people figure relationship things out on their own? Or _not_ , as the case might be. 

Rubbing the skin around the arrow distractedly, Jongin hoped he wouldn't end up soulbonded to someone who was a complete dick. Sehun had been fortunate with his soulmate. Chanyeol was pretty laid-back and good to Sehun and he even had a great sense of humor. Jongin knew it was a lot to expect, but damnit, couldn't Fate give him someone similar? Someone who wasn't obnoxious? Someone he could maybe like being stuck with for the rest of their lives? That wasn't too much to ask for, was it? 

With a jolt, Jongin realized how much time had passed. Cursing, he picked up his pace and two minutes later, he was at the foot of the sweeping stairs that led up to the massive flight deck that was carved entirely from pink marble. He was just stepping onto the circular platform when a familiar voice called out his name.

“Joonmyun, hi,” he greeted, smiling at his friend who worked in the Strategy Department. They had met in their Academy days, and even though Joonmyun was enrolled at the Strategy Academy next door, they had often been thrown together for common training sessions. Warrior and strategy angels were trained to be independent parts of a seamless whole so they had seen a lot of each other in classes as well as outside classes. They had fallen into an easy friendship and Jongin had even harbored a secret crush on Joonmyun at the beginning. But their relationship had been platonic in every way and the crush had faded away just as quietly as it had materialized.

"Some intel just came in; I'm on the way to HQ to analyze it. They should be updating angels on patrol any moment now. They just picked up some weird readings on the bioradar. The demons flying in the direction of Opal Forest—their heat signatures look _off_. The demons seem larger and faster than usual. Central reported the same issue with some of the demons they're tracking ten miles out of Azure Forest. That's right next to where Opal is. I don't think it's a coincidence." Joonmyun was frowning and he only did that when things were serious.

"I'll be extra careful," Jongin promised. What the hell was up with those demons? There was a tug of apprehension in his gut but he was careful not to let his wariness show on his face.

"Just—" Joonmyun's face was twisted in concern now and Jongin's senses prickled with anxiety. "Be alert, Jongin. And stay in touch with us, okay? If you see anything that doesn't look right, you get your ass back here."

"I will. Good luck figuring out what the deal is with those demons."

"Stay safe," Joonmyun said before suggesting that they should have a drink the next night. Jongin nodded and they exchanged uneasy smiles. Then, Joonmyun turned quickly on his heel and left. He never stayed to watch Jongin or any of the other angels take flight, not if he could help it. 

Joonmyun hadn't always been in the Strategy Academy. He'd started out at the Battle Academy the same way Jongin, Sehun and Luhan had, but when Joonmyun was fourteen, he'd taken a bad fall in the Obsidian Canyon during flight training. One of his wings had been severely damaged. Even though Joonmyun's wings looked like any other angel’s, the injury had shattered his dreams of becoming a warrior angel. Several years ago, he and Jongin had had too much to drink at one of the clubs in the Rec District and Jongin had asked what he would normally have been too discreet to ask.

"Does your wing. . .Joonmyun, does your wing ever hurt? The one that. . .y'know? I mean, damn, why am I even asking? Blame it on the fucking gin. Just forget I asked, okay? I didn't just ask you about your wing, I swear." Jongin was sober enough to know that it was a question he shouldn't have asked but Joonmyun had drunk even more than Jongin and seemed determined to answer. 

"It doesn't hurt. Much. But when there's a storm coming, when it rains, it gets a little sore. I'll tell you what _really_ hurts though,” he said with a humorless grin. “What really hurts is not being able to fly. That hurts more than anything."

"I'm sorry, Joonmyun."

"I know my legs work just fine, but some days it feels a lot like I'm paralysed in one leg. Not being able to fly, I mean? It's like I can walk ok with one leg but the other one doesn't work. How fucking messed up is that?" There had been so much bitterness in those words and Jongin's heart had ached for his friend.

"It's not—"

"How about we have another drink?" Joonmyun had cut him off before changing the topic—talking about this place he'd found in Cynosura that sold the most powerful enchanted weapons he'd ever seen. Apparently the owner, Yifan was kind of cute even if he liked to growl and snarl at people. 

They'd never spoken of Joonmyun's loss since that night, but Jongin would never forget the pain in his friend's eyes. _Never_. Perhaps he'd bring it up with Joonmyun one day. But for now, he had to get to the Opal Forest and slay some demons. He remembered Joonmyun's warning and wandered what mutated demons lurked in the skies over Opal Forest. What lay in wait for Sehun and him? Well, they'd cross that bridge when they came to it but for the next ten minutes at least, it would just be him and the elements—

Jongin's booted feet stopped about twenty feet away from the edge of the marble platform and he closed his eyes, just for a second, as the wind lashed at his face, lifting his hair off his scalp in wild tangles. His wings were stretched to their full span and energy was coursing through his body, every nerve end alive and singing with sensation. Slowly, Jongin began to flap his wings, the golden feathers rippling in the strong breeze. Then his feet were pounding across the smooth marble. Pounding and pounding until he ran out of deck and his body began lifting off the ground. Face etched in a carefree grin, Jongin dove off the platform and soared through the sunset-lit sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed meeting warrior angel Jongin and his friends. I would love to hear what you think so I hope you'll leave me a comment or come talk to me on twitter: @lotuslatte


	2. Be Careful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of demons and demonhunters

  
  
**_The Opal Forest_**  
  
"I hope they're not going to be more of a pain in the ass than usual." Sehun sighed as he dragged the small square of cotton cloth across the blade of his truthsword, wiping away barely-there traces of oil. It was one of his pre-battle rituals, something he absolutely _had to do_ before he took to the air to duel with demons. 

Squinting at the sky, Jongin muttered, "Demons that are bigger and faster? I don't know, man. Sounds like trouble and a whole lot of pain in the ass to me."

"Hey, what happened to downplaying the threat and spreading positivity?" Sehun chuckled as he brushed strands of straight, gray hair off his forehead.

"You know I don't do lies," Jongin snorted. "No sign of hostiles yet, but will you fucking hurry up with the sword thing?"

On nights when they made demon kills, Jongin and Sehun cleaned and oiled their swords meticulously before storing them, just like their weapons instructors at Battle Academy had trained them to do. So technically, Sehun didn't even need to clean his sword before combat duty. But he seemed to gain a sense of calm and focus from performing the mindless task. He never failed to take his cloth out and polish already gleaming steel—slow, methodical swipes over smooth, cold metal. Over and over.

Jongin was grateful, though, that no matter how long Sehun lingered over the task, he always made sure to vanish the sword before dark wings appeared in the sky above them. Jongin did not share his best friend’s obsessive need to clean his sword before battle, thank the gods. Unlike Sehun, Jongin's pre-battle thing was surveying the surrounding landscape, his gaze focused and on the constant alert for signs of movement. 

The trees made spooky silhouettes at the foot of the twilit sky and Jongin shivered. He had never liked the Opal Forest much. The eerie treescape and denseness of the foliage made him uneasy. There was no clear view of the moon and stars from where they were stationed. Angels gravitated towards open spaces and miles and miles of unchained sky, so standing in the center of any kind of forest tended to make Jongin feel antsy and claustrophobic. But even though he hated being hemmed in, Jongin found a way to compartmentalize the stress. Jongin dealt. He always found a way to deal.

It was unfortunate for warrior angels that designated hunting grounds were always uninhabited areas like forests and valleys. They would have been so much happier in plains and meadows but such terrain offered scant camouflage and demons would have been able to pick out them out with almost zero effort given their razor sharp night vision. Invisibility was crucial so no matter how uncomfortable angels felt in forests and valleys, that didn’t change the fact that these were the best places in which to stalk and neutralize winged prey before they could access and attack the populated cities of Orbis. 

On the rare occasions that Lux and Veritas' warriors got so badly injured they needed evac, or worse, they got themselves killed, it was infinitely easier to move the bodies from isolated areas than from populated ones. It was an inescapable truth that a falling angel was a lethal projectile, capable of inflicting physical damage on people and property as it crashed to earth. It was a logistic nightmare no one at HQ wanted to deal with. 

A couple minutes later, Sehun's fingers stopped their ministrations and he tucked the cleaning cloth into the front pocket of his pale gray pants. "I'm ready," he said in a quiet voice as he held the sword in front of him, right hand wrapped around the grip and left over the pommel. The point of the blade facing skyward, Sehun voiced the incantation—softly, under his breath. There was a sudden shimmering of light and tiny, silver sparkles swirled along the surface of the blade. 

By force of habit, Jongin counted in his head: _one, two, three_. . .and the truthsword was gone. Half a heartbeat later, the smoky quartz crystal pendant that lay against Sehun's collarbone glowed a ghostly white. Every warrior angel was presented with a sword crystal on their graduation day and Jongin wore his citrine crystal suspended from a leather cord. Wings rendered baldrics pretty much useless and swords worn at the hip got in the way of take offs and landings. Freedom of movement was vital to angels so Veritas and his weapon mages had come up with this magical method for angels to transport their swords. 

"Sehun, Jongin, incoming!" Joonmyun's voice sounded strangely distorted over his headset, but Jongin was dead sure it was his friend. He must have ended up manning the bioradar tonight.

“On it,” they responded in unison. 

Sehun turned to face Jongin. "Try not to get your ass killed," Sehun said in a tone that was his very own signature blend of serene and deadpan. 

"Yeah. You keep your ass safe, too." Jongin said in a gruff voice, his golden-feathered wings already arching upward as grotesque, inky shapes invaded the expanse of sky above their heads. Sehun’s pale gray wings had spread out to their full span too, the tips just touching the grass. 

The two angels closed their eyes for a few moments, taking a few deep breaths as they cleared their mind of all thoughts but the ones pertaining to the hunt before them. They opened their eyes and Jongin’s hand rested on Sehun’s shoulder in a brief, brotherly gesture.Then, it was time to go. Swiftly, their wings began to flap, the movement creating pockets of air currents that made clouds of dust drift up around their ankles. 

"Let's go," Sehun yelled and they began running, faster and faster. Then they were leaping into the air as their wings carried them up and up, further and further away from the ground. . .further and further from safety.  
  
 ** _The Azure Forest_**  
  
Kyungsoo could barely hear his thoughts over the roar of the motorbikes as they sped along the desolate country road. The sky was darkening fast and the only artificial light on the road was coming from their headlights. Eight hours earlier, Kyungsoo and his teammates had received orders from Central to hunt demons in the Azure Forest. His watch informed him that ETA was in eight minutes, and the tips of Kyungsoo’s fingers buzzed with pent-up energy. 

There was no feeling quite like the hunt and Kyungsoo was hungry to be reacquainted with the high that came from shooting down the deep purple demons. Demons were filthy, winged beasts that fed off the fear and soul stuff of human beings so Kyungsoo had no qualms about killing them with his well-aimed arrows. He would not leave the hunting grounds empty-handed tonight. That was a promise.

Demonhunters worked in pairs or teams of four, depending on the size of the hunting grounds and the size of the packs of demons headed in their direction. The Azure Forest was massive so Central tended to send teams of four into the area. Demons usually flew in packs of four to six, and the hunters usually saw anything from three to six packs fly over an area on any given night. No one really knew why but demons never seemed to deviate from this pattern of behavior. 

All the demons streaming out of the Demon Realm had some human city as their destination, and they flew over any number of forests and valleys along their journey. It was the joint responsibility of demonhunters and warrior angels to disable the demons before they had the chance to reach any human city. They couldn’t stop them all but they tried their fucking hardest. 

When demons managed to breach the airspace of a city, they came under the jurisdiction of the Joint Forces. In each human city of Orbis, there were elite teams of angels and demonhunters who worked hand-in-hand to keep the citizens safe—the last bastion against demon attack and for the most part, they got the job done. 

One of the black motorcycles began pulling ahead, splintering away from their formation. It was Team Leader Amber. Of course it was her. She always pulled away from the group just before she gave them their orders. Sure enough, her voice came over Kyungsoo’s headset, clear and commanding. 

“I'm entering the forest from the northern end. Kyungsoo, you take the west. Jongdae, you're on the east. Zitao, enter from the south.” 

Three male voices chorused assent and Amber gave them the relevant co-ordinates for the southern, eastern and western exits to the forest. Then she issued one final order for everyone to rendezvous here after the hunt was done—just after sunrise. 

“Got it,” Kyungsoo and the others said before they took off on their assigned trajectories. Kyungsoo accessed the navigational system on his watch and set the course for the western exit. Then he was speeding to his destination, the engine rumbling beneath his thighs as the wind tore at him. For one brief moment, Kyungsoo allowed himself to grin, his blood coursing with energy as the motorbike brought him closer and closer to the coming hunt. 

This was it. This was what Kyungsoo and other demonhunters like himself lived for. This was what it meant to be a servant of the Goddess of Light. 

_To protect the people of Orbis. To live for the hunt._   
  


✾

  
  
Several miles of unlit, deserted road later, Kyungsoo arrived at the western exit. He killed his engine and let the motorbike roll quietly to a halt. It was routine procedure to conceal their motorcycles just beyond the perimeter of the forest and trek the rest of the distance on foot. It was the the safest, most sensible method of approach because demons had a heightened sense of sight, hearing and smell. The less warning the vile creatures had of an imminent attack, the better. His body moving silently and stealthily, Kyungsoo pushed his motorbike over to a clump of bushes, parking it in the foliage before entering the Azure Forest. 

Thanks to the genetic modifications Lux had made with the first generation of demonhunters, Kyungsoo had inherited heightened sensory perception. So even though it was twilight and the forest was cloaked in a fragile kind of darkness, he barely had to strain to see the footpath. The adrenalin buzz beneath Kyungsoo's skin grew more intense as he began moving through the trees. The longbow and quiver of enchanted arrows slung to his back felt too heavy, too constricting. He was impatient to use his weapons. It had been almost a week since his last kill and Kyungsoo was determined to shoot down some demons tonight. The gods helped anyone or anything that stood in his way. 

He made careful, soundless progress through the forest, and had been walking for almost ten minutes when the skin of his wrist began to stir. A tide of warmth spilled over his skin. The sensations were neither pleasant nor painful, but they were completely impossible to ignore. The soulmark had lain quiet on his left wrist from the day of his thirteenth birthday. That morning, he'd woken up to find a shimmery golden feather bonded into his skin. The skin in and around the soulmark had felt achy and sore the entire day even though it hadn’t been red or inflamed. The discomfort had annoyed Kyungsoo he’d been so relieved when he'd woken up the next morning to find the soulmark inert and painless. 

For the last eleven years, Kyungsoo had more or less managed to forget he even had a soulmark—other than the occasional glimpse of gold when he was soaping himself in the shower or when he was fastening his armguard. He didn't like things that weren't tangible, things he couldn't see or touch for himself. Phenomena that couldn't be explained by cold hard logic irritated him. But even a cynic like himself had to acknowledge the existence of soulmates. He'd seen too many friends and relatives bond with their destined mates to deny that soulmates were a _thing_ —a very _real_ thing. 

He couldn’t see the golden feather at the moment, obscured as it was by the sturdy brown leather of his armguard. Kyungsoo couldn’t see it but he could most definitely feel its presence. It had been a placid, neutral kind of sensation earlier on but it was transforming into something entirely different now. He actually had to stifle the urge to gasp as the soulmark tingled and sent tiny waves of pleasure across his skin. What the fuck was going on? 

His cousin Seokjin had told Kyungsoo of how his soulmark had started to itch and burn for up to ten minutes before he came face-to-face with his soulmate, Min Yoongi. When they’d finally met, their soulmarks had begun to glow, just like the books had said they would. Kyungsoo had read about soulmarks that burned and glowed but he had never read about soulmarks being able to make one feel things low in their gut. Soulmarks had no business making him feel almost aroused. Why hadn’t Seokjin mentioned this to him? 

Kyungsoo swore. _Damn you, Kim Seokjin. Are you keeping secrets from me?_

Then, to Kyungsoo’s great relief, the soulmark went inert. He continued along the footpath, waiting for his soulmark to come to life again somehow. But it stayed mysteriously silent. That weird thing it had done earlier, though. Was it some kind of sign that he was about to meet his soulmate? It made sense that his soulmark would start acting up when he was about to meet his soulmate—except for the part where he was in the middle of a fucking forest. 

What were the chances he would meet _anyone_ , let alone his soulmate in the middle of a fucking uninhabited forest? There was a possibility he might cross paths with one of his teammates in here, but he’d known each and every one of them for six years now. It was pretty damned safe to say that none of them could possibly be his soulmate. Short of the human, hunter or angel literally falling out of the sky, Kyungsoo couldn’t see how his destined mate would materialize in the Azure Forest tonight.

Stretching his left arm out, he stared at the thick layer of leather that kept the golden feather out of view. He paused, willing the strangely erotic sensations to start up again, but. . .nothing. He frowned. Maybe he’d imagined the whole thing. Whatever bizarre thing had just happened with his soulmark, Kyungsoo would just have to worry about it after tonight's session. Maybe he'd text Seokjin in the morning. But for now, he had to empty out all his thoughts so he could stay focused on the demons he had to hunt. 

The moon cast a steely glow over the forest floor and Kyungsoo picked his way over sprawling tree roots and holes in the ground—his movements swift, sure, careful. The night air was fresh and cool against his arms and the tactile scent of earth and grass and leaves strong in his nostrils. He loved being this up close to nature. It wasn’t that he felt trapped in Cynosura because he enjoyed the creature comforts of the urban lifestyle as much as the next person. But there was just something special about being out in the woods. Nothing but him and the trees. Back to basics. 

When he was finally atop Falcon’s Edge Cliff, Kyungsoo took a moment to inhale the clean air and survey his surroundings for signs of movement. A tiny sliver of moon was all that lit the earth tonight and the sky was free of demon activity. Letting out a loud exhale, he reached behind his back for the longbow that had been with him for six years. He had used the same longbow since his first month as a full-fledged demonhunter. He could still remember selecting the enchanted yew wood in the shop owned by the weapon mage Park Chanyeol. He could remember how smooth and unusually warm it had felt beneath his fingertips even though it was the middle of winter. And he could remember how _right_ the finished longbow had felt in his hands when Chanyeol had presented it to him three weeks later. He had killed hundreds of demons with this bow and he would kill at least six more tonight if he had anything to do with the matter.

Kyungsoo held the longbow upright and anchored the wood with his leg so it wouldn’t slip. Then he bent the bow down before passing the top loop of the bowstring smoothly over the top nock. Last of all, he hooked the remaining loop over the bottom nock. The act of stringing his weapon was an instinctual one for a demonhunter like Kyungsoo. It was something that centered him, a simple, comforting ritual that prepared him mentally for the big event. With his Bow of Light in hand and his Arrows of Truth resting menacingly in their quiver, Kyungsoo was ready to face his foes.  
  
 ** _The Opal Forest_**  
  
Jongin’s muscles were strung a little tighter than usual tonight as he walked the knife’s edge between his anxiety over Joonmyun’s warning, and the fact that his soulmark kept pulsing every ten to fifteen minutes. Not erotically, thank fuck. He should be grateful for small mercies. It would have been tricky trying to explain to Sehun why he had a boner in the middle of combat duty. He was still toying with the idea of asking Sehun if he’d ever had the same experience with his soulmark. Jongin wanted to ask but he just couldn’t find the right words or the right time to do it. 

_Three hours and still no sign,_ he thought, as his eyes scanned the midnight blue above them. They were perched, side-by-side on the branch of an enormous white oak tree that towered a hundred feet above the forest floor. 

They’d been in the Opal Forest for close to three hours now, and Jongin and Sehun had been brutal and efficient—taking down all of the demons that had wandered into their surveillance zone. Demons were feral and vicious with superior vision and physical strength, but they were not, by nature, intuitive fighters. They favored brute force over strategy when they fought against the warrior angels and this approach often turned out fatal for demons. 

When it came to sheer numbers, the demon population was double that of the humans, angels and demonhunters combined. Or at least that was the impression the God Tenebris liked to give in his tersely worded missives to his sister Lux. The inhabitants of Orbis were really fortunate, though, that the servants of Tenebris were not as brilliant or as resourceful as the warriors of Lux and Veritas. Tenebris would surely have gained control of Orbis by now if the demons he commanded had half the intelligence of their opponents. 

“So where are these faster, bigger demons HQ was all panicky about? It’s just been business as usual so far,” Sehun wondered aloud as he stared up at the sky.

“Joonmyun was so sure. And he was, well, he looked worried. You know how chill he is most of the time. I don’t think we should let our guard down.”

“Yeah, sure. I just hope those bastards show up soon though. I’d just as soon get it over and done with. I’m heading to Chanyeol’s after this. He got back to town a few hours ago. I haven’t seen him since Monday and it’s hard. Y’know?”

“What do you mean by hard?” Jongin turned his head so he could see Sehun’s expression in the eerie moonlight.

“When you’re apart from each other for more than a few days, you get this—” Sehun’s palm was rubbing a spot to the left of his sternum as he struggled visibly for the right words. “Man, I don’t even know how to describe it but. . .there’s this heaviness in your chest that won’t go away until you see each other again.”

Jongin sighed, resting the tips of his index and third finger on his forehead in a gesture of mild defeat. “That sounds really inconvenient, Sehunnie.” And almost like Fate was mocking him, his soulmark chose that exact moment to throb. 

“Only if you let it. I happen to _like_ Chanyeol’s company so it’s not like this soulmate thing is a hardship or anything.”

“Ah, that’s not what I meant, Sehunnie. I was talking about the discomfort that goes with being apart. That doesn’t sound fun at all.”

“Yeah, that is not fun at all,” Sehun grimaced. “But we see each other almost every day so it’s not a huge deal. This time round though. There was some convention in the North he had to be at and it’s crazy far from Cerulean City. It didn’t make sense to fly all the way out there when (a), we could only see each other at night and (b), I was on patrols for two of the three nights. All I can say is thank fuck for video calls, man.” Sehun’s laugh had a hollow ring to it and Jongin stroked his back.

“Just three more hours. You’re almost there.” 

Sehun nodded and they were quiet for a while as they let the sounds of the forest wash over them. The cool, late summer night was filled with the strident buzzing of cicadas and the chirping of crickets. The insect song was loud in Jongin’s ears; it was loud but it couldn’t quite drown out the humming of the subtle song beneath his skin, beneath the silver arrow. 

“You okay?” Sehun was giving him a questioning look and Jongin decided right then and there that he would swallow down his stupid insecurities and just ask Sehun what he had been dying all night to ask..

“Before you met Chanyeol, did your soulmark ever do anything w—” But Jongin never got the rest of his question out as Joonmyun’s urgent voice cut through his words. 

“Jongin, Sehun, stand by! Two of those demons are coming at you. The ones we talked about!” Jongin could hear the words just fine but Joonmyun’s voice still sounded a little warped. Was his comm unit malfunctioning? What shit timing. Jongin’s stress levels went up a notch as he got into standing position. 

“On it,” the two angels said with deadly purpose as they made hasty preparations for flight.

“They’re fast. Too fast. We can’t tell if they’re stronger but damnit, be careful.”

“We will,” Jongin reassured him.

“They’re flying over the forest perimeter—GO NOW!”

In a great whoosh of wings and air currents, Sehun dived off the great branch and Jongin launched his body into the air immediately after.  
  


✾

  
  



	3. Meteorite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of swords and arrows

  
  
**_The Azure Forest_**  
  
Kyungsoo’s forehead creased in lines of concentration as his eyes tracked the twisting, jerking, flapping ink blot in the sky. Left arm bent, he pulled the bowstring with controlled strength and held his position, waiting for the right moment to let the arrow fly. In their team, Zitao and Kyungsoo were the fastest archers while Amber was the most accurate. When it came to the difficult Dagger Technique, though, Kyungsoo was the most skilled. It was a style of archery which allowed him to shoot arrow after arrow after arrow in quick succession, thus improving his chances of hitting his prey.

He’d made four kills so far tonight and his blood was pulsing with bubbles of adrenalin as he pushed himself to add one more kill to his personal tally. He thought about the four carcasses from tonight that he would never have to see or handle and said a silent word of thanks to demons for being so helpfully. . .well, biodegradable. In the same way demons spawned out of the Ether of the Demon Realm, so they vanished the same way—transforming into ash when they were killed. The piles of ash always dissolved into nothingness after a little while and the theory was that the demon remains somehow found their way back to the Ether. Due to this “handy” feature the demons possessed, angels and hunters never had to worry about disposing of their kills. It would have made life fucking unbearable if they’d had to collect the foul carcasses of every oily bastard they slayed. 

A few seconds later, Kyungsoo found the opening he wanted. Crooking his fingers, he took aim one last time before releasing the taut bowstring. Then he shot another arrow, then another, and another, and one last one. His movements had been smooth and seamless as he’d reached over his shoulder to pull out an arrow, nocked it and shot it. Rinse, repeat. Only when the final arrow was safely cutting through the air did Kyungsoo finally put his bow down to rest. 

Sharpening his gaze, Kyungsoo watched as the arrows spun and soared and bulleted through the air, seeking their target. The enchanted Arrows of Truth were luminous, leaving shimmering, silvery trails Kyungsoo could see from hundreds of feet below. Meanwhile, the Bow of Light Chanyeol had crafted for him vibrated in his grip. A hunter’s bow and arrows were connected by special threads of magic that lit the path of the arrows. His bow would continue to vibrate until each arrow had struck its target, or made impact with the ground, should it miss.

It was fortunate for demonhunters and the people of Orbis that the demons couldn't see things made from light. This made the arrows invisible to them and this flaw was about the only physical edge hunters had over them. Demons had aerial advantage, powerful wings and superior eyesight, but ironically, they could not see the weapons the hunters used against them. 

After three hours of tracking and shooting demons, Kyungsoo was more than ready for tonight's hunt to reach its completion. His limbs ached and his eyes were feeling the strain of focusing on the pitch black canvas arched above them. As he continued to monitor the trajectory of the arrow, the skin around his tattoo began to prickle and sting. It had been aggravating him all night but the tattoo had not, at any point been uncomfortable, thank the gods. Kyungsoo had a high threshold for pain but even he had to admit that the the burning sensations were now firmly in the territory of almost-pain.

His thoughts couldn’t help wandering back to Seokjin’s account of his first meeting with Yoongi, of how his tattoo had prickled and stung. Was someone about to come running out of the trees claiming to be his destined soulmate? Inexplicably? But he was on the edge of a cliff, in the heart of an uninhabited forest. He snorted. There was just no way his soulmate would miraculously appear before him in the middle of the Azure Forest. 

_Life isn't a fairytale_ , he admonished himself before turning his gaze back to the sky. 

Almost like it was irresistibly drawn, Kyungsoo’s thumb went over the golden feather. He had removed the armguard almost an hour ago as he hadn't been able to take it anymore, hadn't been able to tolerate the chafing of the leather against his soulmark. The mark wasn’t swollen or angry looking but it was hot to the touch—almost like it was infected. He’d have to get Yixing or one of the medical officers at Central to take a look at it in the morning because he couldn’t even begin to explain what was going on with his skin and why it had been irritating him for hours. It didn’t seem to be showing any signs of letting up either and he was starting to feel mildly freaked out. 

But what would he say to Yixing when he showed him the soulmark? How was he going to avoid telling Yixing that his soulmark had almost given him a hard-on? Did he even want to hide it from him? To be honest, he felt like coming clean and just telling him what had happened with the soulmark. Kyungsoo had never been one for keeping secrets. He had always preferred to speak his mind. Yixing would probably be hearing about his almost-boner whether he liked it or not. 

He was still mulling over what to do when his longbow went still between his curled fingers. That very same moment, two glowing Arrows of Truth tore through the spindly chest of the demon Kyungsoo had been stalking. The demon struggled and writhed, free falling through the air as it tried its damnedest to pull out arrows it could feel but could not see. It was trying its hardest but it was far too late. Kyungsoo’s arrows had struck it right through the heart. Ten seconds after the arrows had punctured its chest, the creature disintegrated into a swirling cloud of monstrous black flakes. 

Hundreds of feet below, Kyungsoo pumped his fist in silent celebration. He’d added another kill to his tally for the night and he was pleased. Five down, and he hoped to get a few more before sunrise. He wondered if the extra large demons Central had spotted on the bioradar were just hallucinations. 

They’d all been on the lookout for hours and they’d seen nothing but the regular variety tonight. Just after Amber and her team had taken up their positions in the four corners of the forest, Central had issued the warning, informing hunters on patrol to be on the alert. Kyungsoo had been skeptical then and he was skeptical now. After all, demons had been the same variety of purple fuckers for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. Why the sudden metamorphosis? It didn’t make any sense to him but he’d promised Amber to be vigilant. Kyungsoo had given his word so he would be vigilant no matter how illogical he thought the whole idea was. 

Of course, they hadn’t seen anything other than the usual suspects—not Amber, not Zitao, not Jongdae and certainly not him. He made an impatient noise. The bioradar equipment at Central was probably having an off day. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

“Kyungsoo!” It was Baekhyun from Central and his voice was grave as it crackled over his headset. “One of those outsized demons, coming at you!”

“I’m ready,” Kyungsoo replied. His body was as taut as the string on his bow, his grip on the wood so tight his knuckles showed white beneath his skin. 

“That’s not all. There’s an a—” The static was so thick now that Kyungsoo could barely hear what Baekhyun was saying. “—tailing it.”

“What?! I can’t hear you, Baekhyun. Repeat your message.”

“There’s an—” The line was hissing and popping and Kyungsoo was getting increasingly pissed off with his comm unit. “—hunting it.”

“I can’t hear. Please repeat.”

 _Be careful_ was the last thing Kyungsoo heard before the transmission cut off completely. Seething with frustration, he kicked the ground. Kyungsoo hated it when he didn’t have the whole picture and he felt like he’d missed some crucial information thanks to his loser of a comm unit. Whatever. He still had a job to do. He forced his muscles to unfold and relax as he strode further out onto the ledge. He’d managed to loosen his grip on his longbow by then, thank the gods. He wouldn’t be able to shoot worth a damn if his body was all bunched up in knots. 

He finally stopped walking about eight feet from the precipice, and assumed the shooting stance. Lips set in a thin line, Kyungsoo grabbed one of the arrows from the quiver and nocked it. _Swift and sure_. He had to be swift and sure. Inhaling, he aimed his arrow at the sky, every nerve and muscle in his body humming in readiness. When the demon came into sight, Kyungsoo would be ready to hit it with a barrage of enchanted arrows. 

He didn’t have long to wait. One second, there was a clear view of the new moon, and the next, it was being obliterated by a demon bigger and quicker than any Kyungsoo had ever seen. It had puckered skin the shade of congealed blood and wicked looking talons that could probably rip out a person's beating heart from their chest with one vicious, well-aimed swipe. Kyungsoo had seen his fair share of hideous demons that were nothing more than bruise-colored bags of scrawny limbs, snarling fangs and leathery skin. Not a single one of them had looked as terrifying as the beast currently flying in his direction.

Strings of light were reaching up towards the beast from what looked like the Southern sector of the forest. _Zitao_ , Kyungsoo thought as he held his breath and waited for the arrows to pierce the beast. An unearthly shriek filled the air as the arrows hit the demon just above the stomach. He waited for the shrieks to get louder but then the most unexpected thing happened. The arrows did not penetrate the mottled red hide. All they did was skitter harmlessly off the side and fall to earth. No purple demon could ever have repelled arrows the way this red one had done with almost no effort at all. Arrows of Truth seemed virtually useless against it. 

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?!” Zitao said, his voice shot through with shock. 

“I don’t know but if there’s more than one of _that thing_ , we’re up shit creek, friends,” Jongdae said succinctly and Kyungsoo was in full agreement as he watched the massive beast flying above them. 

“Everyone calm down. We’ve still got arrows. Hit it with everything we’ve got. Bows on the ready, shoot NOW!” Amber ordered and within seconds the air was filled with arrows coming from the four corners of the Azure Forest.

“What if we can’t stop it?” Kyungsoo asked as arrows dropped from the sky like broken straws. They weren’t getting anywhere with killing it, but they did seem to be slowing the monster down. For whatever reason, it wasn’t making much of an attempt to fly out of their firing range. 

“If we can’t kill it, there are other angels and hunters in the surrounding area it’s got to get past. Bows on the ready, shoot NOW!” 

Suddenly remembering his fragmented exchange with Baekhyun, Kyungsoo took the opportunity to ask, “What did Baekhyun say in his last message? Something about the demon being tailed or hunted?” 

“Can’t hear y—” Zitao said before his voice got eaten up by a tangle of static. Then there was nothing but insect song and the sound of his own breathing. But Fate wasn’t done with him yet. She was in the mood to totally fuck up his night, it seemed, as his soulmark started to throb. It had been almost-pain he’d been feeling earlier, but it was just full-on pain eating at his wrist now. If he could have asked Fate to fuck off, Kyungsoo would have done it with two middle fingers raised.

“Bows on the ready, shoot NOW!” Amber’s voice echoed in his ears as Kyungsoo’s comm unit suddenly came back to life. Pulling back his bowstring, Kyungsoo took aim and shot four arrows, one after another, and watched as they joined other arrows in their quest to end the demon’s life. 

“Die, you fucking bastard. Die.” Kyungsoo said the words out loud, willing them to come true.  
  
**_The Opal Forest_**  
  
Just before Jongin was about to clear the tops of the trees, he halted his ascent, controlling his wing movements so he could hover among the trees. He needed to be armed and ready for both offensive and defensive measures when the demon finally got into his personal space. There wasn’t much time now. He had to be quick, real quick, he thought as his left fist closed over his citrine crystal pendant. Twenty feet away, Sehun was doing the exact same thing with his sword crystal. Closing his eyes, Jongin voiced the incantation in his head, _veni ad me_. 

_Come to me_. . .the words were still echoing inside his head when he opened his eyes and the citrine began to shimmer and shine. In a matter of seconds, the fingers of his sword hand were wrapped around the warm, dark leather of the grip, the steel of the longsword gleaming in the night. A round, metal shield had appeared in the same moment, taking up residence in Jongin’s left hand. He exchanged a nod with Sehun and they began to rise, swords in hand, their wings climbing till they had cleared the canopy.

When the demon’s silhouette materialized in the distance, tiny icicles of fear began to form at the edges of Jongin’s heart. The beast was easily three times the size of a regular demon and it could fly faster, so much faster than a purple one could. Its wings were an ugly deep red and its wingspan was as wide as an angel’s. It could possibly fly as fast as angels if not faster. The thought filled Jongin with worry. The purple demons hadn’t been too difficult to catch, being slower and weaker than angels, but this fucker. . .this fucker was something else altogether.

Jongin took in its wrinkled hide that looked as if it had been stained with brushstrokes of blood, and shuddered. It had the same kind of sharp snout and grotesque facial features and snarling fangs as its predecessors, just on a larger scale, like three times larger. The demon had curved, vicious talons that looked like they would cut through flesh like a heated blade would slice through soft butter. Jongin’s fingers curled more tightly around the center-grip of his shield. He did not want those six inch-long talons embedded in any part of his body, fuck his life. 

“Get ready to attack!” Joonmyun commanded amid a swirling of static and Jongin and Sehun flew forward, swords drawn. Meanwhile, the silver arrow on his wrist began to pulse painfully and Jongin sent a quick prayer to Fate, asking her to give him a fucking break.  
  


✾

Jongin’s nostrils were thick with the foul stench of the monster’s breath. He’d managed to avoid its claws for the most part although the demon had managed to make a few rips and tears in Jongin’s trousers. A few scratches here and there didn’t scare angels. Their genes had been engineered for advanced self-healing—knitting and repairing non-fatal wounds and hairline fractures from the inside out. When they sustained deep claw wounds that were too much for their bodies to cope with, they took an ampoule or two of antidote. They never went on combat duty without the regulation eight-pack of demon-venom antidote. The problem now was whether this demon had the same kind of venom as the regular ones. If it didn’t. . .well. Jongin didn’t even want to think about how many ways tonight could go wrong.

Right on cue, the demon swiped at Sehun, catching him on the right upper arm. Sehun’s groan was loud and worrying. Jongin immediately stabbed at the demon’s shoulder to distract its attention from his injured friend. He had to get it away from Sehun somehow. He didn’t know what he would do if anything happened to his best friend. 

“I just need a minute and I’ll join you,” Sehun said over the comm unit. Jongin’s stomach dropped at how weak Sehun sounded.

“Don’t be an idiot! Get to ground and fix your arm. Better take an ampoule or three.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“I know you will but get your ass down there anyway. I’ve already asked HQ to send someone so you’d better be down there waiting.”

“You can’t fight this one on your own,” Sehun argued miserably.

“Getting yourself killed because you can’t react fast enough isn’t going to help me. Come on, Sehunnie. You being up here is just going to distract me and then we might both get our asses killed. Just fix it.”

“I can fight—!” The crackling was starting up again, drowning out the end of Sehun’s sentence. 

“Later! After you fix your arm. GO.” 

They’d been taking turns to attack the demon but they were not making any kind of headway and fatigue was dogging Jongin, draining his muscles and his limbs. This beast was much quicker and better at avoiding sword thrusts than the usual demons and it had sent both angels flying multiple times. At least five times in the past ten minutes, Jongin had been lucky to dart out of the way just in time when wicked sharp talons came surging at him.

It didn’t help matters that the monster’s hide was close to impenetrable. Their current weapons just weren’t working against this fucker. It was both frustrating and disturbing. There was no doubt at all in Jongin’s mind that the only reason he and Sehun and were still breathing was because the beast hadn’t really been trying to kill them. It had some other agenda and killing angels was not its priority.

The beast was pulling away from Jongin, flapping its massive wings in an ugly, jerky rhythm. It didn’t seem interested in toying with Jongin anymore. Maybe it was trying to get to Cynosura before daybreak. Jongin could not let it that monster reach the human city. No matter what. They had drifted way beyond the perimeters of the Opal Forest but that was the least of Jongin’s worries right now. He couldn’t lose sight of this beast. He’d been in touch with HQ, updating Joonmyun on how their attempts to take down the demon had so far been futile. 

The attempts had been futile, yes, but Jongin knew he couldn’t give up now. He knew he couldn’t let the demon escape, couldn’t let it reach a human city. The potential carnage was enough to freeze Jongin’s blood all the way through. There would be other angels and hunters to fight this big fucker between now and daybreak but Jongin had to do his part. He had to do his part. 

“Joonmyun! I’m going after it,” he yelled into his headset.

“Jongin, I can’t h— you. . .repeat what y—” The crackling got louder and louder and then Jongin couldn’t hear Joonmyun anymore. But he would worry about his dead comm unit and the steady throbbing of his soulmark later. For now, he had a demon to hunt.  
  


✾

The sky was alive with light and metal and Jongin hung back, watching as Arrows of Truth pelted the demon’s hide, most of them dropping to the ground right afterwards. A few arrows managed to root themselves but the demon just flicked them off like they were nothing more than delicate toothpicks. Jongin’s comm unit was still silent and lifeless so he couldn’t even get HQ to inform the hunters he was in the vicinity. But Joonmyun had probably been tracking him on the bioradar since they’d lost radio contact. Joonmyun was thorough like that and he was probably cursing Jongin for being reckless but he would have updated Central on his whereabouts. Central had probably picked up on his heat signature too and warned the hunters in Azure Forest. Angels and demons didn’t look anything alike after all.

He would just hover in the distance and wait till they stopped shooting at the thing before he carried on tailing it. The demon was fast and strong but Jongin could just keep up with it. He would do everything he could to keep up with it. Just as he’d predicted, the magical streams of light stopped flowing out of the forest after a two-minute blitz. The beast was starting to move away and Jongin waited a little to make sure there were no more arrows. Once he was sure the hunter attack was over, he channelled all his strength into his wings in an adrenalin-fuelled burst of energy. He shot forward after the demon, his wings flapping as powerfully as they could with what depleted reserves he had left. 

Jongin had almost reached the edge of the forest when he heard a noise like a whip being flayed and then there was light, so much light that he felt like he was being blinded. Then there was an explosion of pain in his left shoulder. The arrow exited his back and then Jongin’s blood ran cold as it pierced his left wing. As the pain spread and turned more intense, Jongin began to plummet through the air. 

“No! Fuck! This is not happening. This is not fucking happening!”

Jongin said the words over and over like they would somehow stop his descent. But Fate wasn’t listening as he continued to fall to earth. He shivered as fingers of frost wrapped around him. It was cold, so cold. Angels were usually invulnerable to cold but Jongin was being swept away on a tide of chill.

Too fast, he was dropping too fast. 

As his injured wings twisted and churned and tried to find purchase, Jongin remembered his friend Joonmyun who had wings but couldn't fly. He remembered Joonmyun and he prayed to his god Veritas that the fall wouldn't damage his wings irreparably. He prayed that the fall wouldn't break his body and steal his ability to fly. 

No matter what Fate threw at him, Jongin had always found a way to deal. But he wasn't sure if he could deal with not being able to fly. So he prayed. He prayed like he'd never prayed before.


	4. Impact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of golden feather and silver arrow

  
  
**_The Azure Forest_**  
  
The demon roared in annoyance as luminous arrows ricocheted off its body. The hunters had pretty much exhausted their firepower and all they’d managed to do was slow down the beast. Central and the weapon mages would have to devise heavier, more penetrative arrows—arrows imbued with more potent magic. That wasn't all. The hunters were going to have to adjust their shooting styles to accommodate these new missiles. Shooting down purple demons was instinctive for the hunters. It was what they had trained for in Battle Academy—what Kyungsoo and his teammates had been doing with crushing efficiency for six years. But this new demon was something else altogether. New arrows. Possibly new techniques. 

It was going to be such a hassle, he thought, as he kicked up some dirt. Why couldn’t the bastard just die? They’d shot enough arrows at it to kill a dozen purple demons, for fuck’s sake. He only hoped it was there weren’t more demons like this red one. The people of Orbis really needed it to be the only one of its kind.

“Damnit, I’m out,” Zitao declared in disgust after they’d released the next onslaught of arrows. Kyungsoo’s comm unit was still snowing but at least he could more or less make out what Zitao was saying. 

“Same,” Jongdae chimed in, his voice tinged with concern.

“I’m done too. Kyungsoo?” If Amber was worried, it didn’t show. She always kept a cool head, even when the situation was dire. And this situation would definitely turn dire if the red fucker decided to dive down into the trees and attack them. It would have to find them first, but _still_. Gods, Kyungsoo didn’t even want to think about the potential mess and stress. 

“Six more arrows,” he announced.

“Make them count. And watch out for the a—” The rest of Amber’s words were drowned out by static hiss and Kyungsoo swore. Zitao had promised to check out Kyungsoo’s borked unit when the team rendezvoused at daybreak, but Kyungsoo was beginning to think the damned thing would probably blow up in a shower of sparks before the sun even rose. Fuck everything. 

His quarry was already on the move so he had to strike like lightning, quick and accurate. The arrows wouldn’t make much of a difference, but he had to at least try. They had been incredibly lucky the demon had even hung around this long. After all, the arrows had done nothing to deter its progress. It could have just kept flying towards its ultimate destination instead of lingering. Why had the creature lingered? There had been nothing to gain from it—no logic to its behavior. 

_Make those arrows count, Do Kyungsoo_ , he muttered under his breath as he took aim and released the last of his arrows, one after another. Streamers of light sailed through the air and Kyungsoo prayed they would find their target and make that demon bleed. For a moment, it looked as if they might. . .but the red demon suddenly propelled itself forward. Kyungsoo groaned in frustration as he watched his arrows miss their target. One, two, three, four, five arrows—all of them hit nothing but empty air. Meanwhile, his bow continued to vibrate like a tuning fork.

Kyungsoo located the sixth arrow right away, and cursed at the waste of six perfectly good arrows. Then something shot into view—something that was trying to catch up with the demon. No, not something. _Someone_ , he realized as he glimpsed a flash of gold. And wings! He saw majestic, golden wings that weren’t leathery or oily or attached to a demon. 

An angel? In hunter territory? What the fuck was it even doing here? Kyungsoo was still trying to process what he was seeing when his longbow went dead still, and his tattoo began to pulse and sear even harder than it had already been doing. Then the ribbon of light that was Kyungsoo’s sixth arrow splintered and fractured as it punctured the angel’s left shoulder. 

At the exact moment the arrow pierced the angel’s flesh, Kyungsoo bent over double, grunting as sharp pain sliced through his left shoulder. He checked for blood, but he found none. Of course, he found none. He was in pain because the angel was in pain. He’d known this the moment the arrow had struck the angel’s shoulder. If the golden wing feathers hadn’t been enough of a dead giveaway, the empathetic pain had sealed things irrevocably for Kyungsoo. 

He’d read an article once, when he was in Battle Academy, about soulmates whose soulbonds were so intricately entwined that they could feel each other’s physical pain. Sort of like mirror-touch synesthesia, but more intense even. There had been a scientific study and the findings had estimated that only three in two hundred people were soulbonded in this way. Of course Kyungsoo would be in the fucking minority—like he needed to take on anyone else’s pain. 

He didn’t know how he felt about his soulmate being an angel. And frankly, there was no time right now to analyze things because all he could think of, all he could feel right now was the _fucking agony_ in his shoulder. So this was what it felt like to be shot through with an arrow. It was so fucking excruciating that Kyungsoo felt almost obligated to send a formal written apology to every demon he had ever killed. Thank the gods demons turned to ash when they expired. This angel, though. Kyungsoo hated that he would have to apologize to him for real, even if he had had no business being in the Azure Forest in the first place. 

Hundreds of feet above him, the angel was struggling to stay airborne as red blossomed across the pale fabric he wore. But to no avail for blood stained the glimmering, golden wings too. Apparently, the arrow had pierced not only the angel’s shoulder, but his wing too. 

“Fly, damnit, fly,” Kyungsoo commanded, like the words would somehow give the angel wings the boost they needed. Again and again, he repeated the words while his hands trembled. His fingers were cold. . .so cold despite the warm, summer night. Then Kyungsoo’s chest clenched with fear and regret as the injured angel began to plummet through the air. He was trying to fight the pull of gravity, trying to flap his wings in a desperate attempt to halt his too-rapid descent. The angel was trying but he was still falling. Kyungsoo watched helplessly as the angel spiralled and strained and dived towards the earth like an out-of-control meteorite.

“Kyungsoo! What have you done?!” Jongdae's anxious voice was crackling in his ear, threaded through with worry and near panic. 

“Soo! Are you listening to me?" Jongdae’s voice was bristling with irritation.

"A little distracted here," Kyungsoo quipped, sounding equally annoyed.

"I can’t believe you shot down an angel? You'd better pray you don’t end up killing it.”

“Angels are tough bastards. I'm sure he'll live. It’s not like I did it on purpose. My arrow was on target to take down a demon. I mean that angel appeared out of nowhere, what the hell,” Kyungsoo said defensively.

“He was tailing the red fucker. Baekhyun warned us he was in the area. Before the demon even showed up,” Zitao filled in the blanks for him.

“Well, my comm unit screwed me over completely. I had no clue. But that still doesn't explain why he flew over hunter territory! Our hunting grounds aren't supposed to overlap. What was he thinking? He must be either new to this whole warrior angel gig and knows shit about boundaries, or he’s injured and not thinking straight.”

“I think it's pretty damned clear, the angel is injured seeing as _you_ fucking shot it down and it's currently plummeting towards the cold, hard ground?” Even in situations of extreme stress, Jongdae's need to be sarcastic never deserted him for long.

“I mean he must have been injured before he even got hit by my arrow. To be this far off course? Something had to be wrong.”

Amber spoke up. “HQ told Central that they lost contact with him as he was leaving Opal Forest. No one knows why he’s here, to be fucking honest. Well, except him but he’s not telling anyone because his comms are dead.”

“His comm unit is malfunctioning too? That’s so weird, man. Both Soo _and_ the angel.” Zitao’s tone was contemplative. 

“I can’t believe you shot down an angel!” Jongdae spluttered again. He was clearly not going to let this issue rest—for like the next two fucking years.

“I think we’ve established that,” Kyungsoo snapped. “Can we move on?” 

“Wait! Isn’t your soulmark a golden feather?” Jongdae wondered aloud.

“Shut up, Jongdae!” Kyungsoo really did not need to be talking about this right now.

“He seems to have gotten some control over his wings at least. He’s not dropping like a stone anymore.” Zitao observed.

“I just hope he manages to land on his feet. We could do without any broken bones and copious amounts of blood. That would be a job better suited for Yixing, not us, for fuck’s sake,” Jongdae said worriedly. Kyungsoo was consumed with regret that Yixing wasn't on patrols with them tonight. He was only with them three nights a week and tonight was just not one of those nights. He was a skilled archer like the rest of them, but unlike them, Yixing was also a trained medical officer. 

Kyungsoo and and the other three were excellent trackers, among the elite in the land of Orbis, but they really weren't much good at assessing physical damage or administering medical treatment. They could deal with light injuries but anything beyond that. . .Kyungsoo could really have done with Yixing being here tonight. Because Yixing was both a hunter and a medic, he had to go on rotation. When he wasn’t out killing demons with his team, he was on duty at Central’s medical facility. Cynosura Medical Center catered to hunters as well as warrior angels of the Joint Forces and Cerulean City. 

“He's dropping too fast. We need to get to the landing site,” Amber said decisively. “He might need first aid or evac or. . .Gods damn it, it better be just first aid.” For once, a note of worry had crept into their team leader’s voice. But it was just for a moment and then she was back to her usual mode of cool efficiency. “Everyone, head towards the western sector of the forest.” 

Amber had barely got her orders out when the trees above them flashed white. In the not so far off distance, streaks of lightning sundered the sky, followed by loud cracks of thunder.

“Shit. We’re going to have to run faster if we want to beat the storm.” Amber didn’t say what they all knew—that the rain was going to make evacuating the angel a lot messier, assuming they didn’t all get fried by lightning in the process. 

“Ok,” the others agreed.

Amber instructed, “Kyungsoo, you’re the closest. You have basic med supplies, right? Start running now. Give us the coordinates once you locate the angel.”

“Noted!” Then Kyungsoo began to run.

“Right, people, let’s go!” 

“Good l—” Jongdae began but an epic blast of static cut his good luck wishes short.

Kyungsoo dragged a shaky hand through his hair. He had to go. This was a situation he had created. Not intentionally, but it was still something he needed to make right. He really needed the angel to not be dead, to not be badly injured—especially if Kyungsoo was going to get a live feed of any pain the angel experienced. 

Damnit, he really needed the angel to do him a huge favor and not get a single scratch on his refined angel ass. He’d even make a triple offering to Lux on Temple Day if she and Fate would just keep the angel safe. Considering the amount of pain currently radiating from Kyungsoo’s soulmark and from his shoulder, he had a sneaking feeling Fate just might help him out. 

His eyes searched the inky sky for the distinctive flash of gold, tracking the angel so he could figure out which direction to run towards. Kyungsoo hadn't come across many angels in his lifetime and he'd definitely never seen an angel like this one. He'd seen his fair share of white, silver and titanium-winged angels but this was the first golden-winged one he'd ever seen. 

_An angel. Of all the damned things_. In all the years he’d tried to pretend his soulmark didn’t exist, Kyungsoo had never once considered the possibility that his soulmate might be an angel. A hunter or a mage or a human, yes. An angel? Not fucking ever. He’d never met an angel who wasn't standoffish, arrogant or all of the above, so he preferred to avoid them like they had a bad smell. 

That angel with the fancy purple hair and fancy purple wings he’d met once at Chanyeol’s weapons shop? Yifan’s friend whose name he couldn’t remember? He’d been a complete ass. And he’d met more than his fair share of angels like him over the years. Cocky and full of themselves or just utter snobs. That’s what they’d been. Kyungsoo had no time for angels at all. He had no time for soulmarks either, he told himself, even if his own was trying to burn a feather-shaped hole in his skin. 

When he found the angel, he’d apologize and make sure he received treatment for his wounds but that was about as much as he was prepared to do for him. Kyungsoo didn’t expect the golden-winged angel to be any different from the angels he’d met in the past. Couple that with the fact that he’d be pissed off with Kyungsoo for shooting him down in the first place, and he knew their first meeting was going to be a very unpleasant encounter.

 _You just set a new world record for worst first impression ever, Do Kyungsoo_. 

As Kyungsoo sprinted through the darkness, he kept a wary eye on the angel who was half falling, half in tortured flight. The throbbing in his shoulder hadn’t let up since his arrow had pierced the angel’s shoulder and his soulmark was prickling like wildfire and wow, this soulbond shit really sucked. Big time. 

As he ran towards the likely drop zone, Kyungsoo tried to ignore all the pain and discomfort he was feeling. He had no time to think about any of this soulmate-not-soulmate shit right now. No time at all. There were more pressing things to worry about now like finding that damned angel, and making sure he didn’t fuck him over completely by actually dying on his hunting grounds. 

_Fly, damnit, fly,_ he sent the words up to the angel in a silent prayer. He knew the angel couldn’t hear him but he continued to repeat the words in a desperate mantra as his feet pounded across the forest floor, avoiding exposed tree roots and broken tree branches.  
  


✾

  
  
The rain was pouring down in earnest now. His skin, his hair, his clothes, his backpack, his weapons. . . _everything_ was drenched and slick with rainwater. He just hoped the lightning kept its distance. The last thing they needed now was to add an electrical storm to the existing clusterfuck. Storms like that often happened in this part of Orbis, often without warning and the weather could go from clear to thundershowers in a matter of minutes. The air was already thick with the smell of ozone from earlier lightning strikes—isolated ones, thank the gods. Kyungsoo only hoped that was as bad as it was going to get. He shuddered, not even wanting to think about trying to evac someone in the middle of an intense lightning storm. 

Maybe Fate had been listening to his thoughts, and maybe the perverse bitch had decided Kyungsoo needed more aggravation tonight, because seconds later, the sky flashed a blinding white. Kyungsoo held his breath as multiple bolts of lightning struck the ground about a mile away, creating large webs of light that were both beautiful and terrifying. 

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? COME ONNN!” Kyungsoo railed at the sky as fat, heavy raindrops pelted his upturned face. “JUST GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!”

The sky’s only answer was to send another massive lightning strike and a series of deafening thunderclaps. 

“Well, fuck you too!” Kyungsoo yelled, as he gave the sky his middle finger.

Then the elements were all but forgotten as he heard the more immediate sounds of branches breaking and wood snapping and groans of pain as the angel fell through the trees. Kyungsoo was probably about fifty feet away when the angel's body finally struck the ground—the impact sickeningly loud. In the same moment, Kyungsoo sank to his knees, groaning as searing agony ripped through his entire body. It was threatening to overwhelm him but he tried to swallow it down. No matter how much pain he was in now, he had to get to the angel. 

“We can’t see the angel anymore. Kyungsoo, is he in your sight?” Amber’s voice came over his headset, slightly broken up but audible. 

"I saw him coming through the trees. I’m close. Maybe fifty feet from the crash site," he informed the rest of his team as he forced his tired legs to keep running, and forced his mind to shut down the agony gripping his entire body. He’d expected the pain to worsen but it seemed to plateau after the first couple of minutes, thank the gods. 

"Kyungsoo, give us your exact co-ordinates," Amber's voice was calm and decisive. He checked the nav stats on his watch before enunciating the coordinates as loudly and clearly as he could over the fizzing of the line.

"What? I can't—you. . .repeat—" Amber's message was chopped up by loud crackling. Kyungsoo gave his coordinates again and was asked to repeat them twice more before his comm unit went dead completely. He swore at the shitty timing. Of all the nights for his comm unit to flake out, it had to be tonight, what the fuck? 

"Hello? Hello?" He tried calling into his mic again but there was nothing but the silence of the night. "DAMMIT," Kyungsoo shouted in frustration. It was up to him and he would just have to move faster. The grass and earth were unyielding beneath the soles of Kyungsoo’s leather boots as he ran through the trees—as swiftly as his tired legs could take him. His heartbeat was thundering in his ears and everything was pain but he had to reach him.

 _Hold on, just hold on_ , the words were harsh whispers in Kyungsoo’s mind as he ran and ran and ran.  
  


✾

  
  
The ground was a mess of broken twigs, shredded leaves and matted golden feathers. And in the center of all the chaos was the spread-eagled form of the angel. Kyungsoo stopped running a few feet from the angel and he just stood there for a few seconds, taking in the devastated forest floor and the imposing golden wings that looked waterlogged and battered, but not quite broken. 

The pain that had almost crippled Kyungsoo earlier had receded to a bearable kind of dull ache and he suspected it had everything to do with the angel’s powers of advanced healing. To Kyungsoo's relief, the angel’s body seemed to have survived the fall without any badly broken limbs or severe loss of blood. It was indeed true that it took more than any normal injury to make an angel bleed or break its bones. Thank fuck he had managed to slow down his descent partially or things might have been worse. So much worse. 

Kyungsoo couldn’t see the angel’s face. He had an impression of wet blond hair, and tanned skin that seemed, inexplicably, to be covered in patches of gold. He stepped closer to the angel and the closer he got, the less his body seemed to hurt. Finally, as he was almost in touching distance of the angel, the golden feather he had carried on his skin for the past eleven years began to shimmer. Kyungsoo fell slowly to his knees, his thumb rubbing the glowing skin. And the soulmark felt warm and alive despite the cool rain falling on his skin.

“Sir, are you all right? Can you hear me?” Kyungsoo asked.

Slowly, the angel raised his chest off the ground, moaning as he lay on his side. And that’s when Kyungsoo saw it, the silver arrow on his wrist that was glimmering and glowing the same way his own golden feather was doing. Kyungsoo’s gaze moved from the soulmark to the angel’s face. There were tiny smears of dirt on his cheeks and forehead and he was clearly wincing in pain, but despite all that, the angel had the most beautiful smile Kyungsoo had ever seen. 

“You didn’t have to do that, you know?” The angel’s voice was husky and deep and his words were. . .completely confusing.

“What?” Kyungsoo asked in a voice that was too loud.

“You didn’t have to shoot me down just because you wanted to meet your soulmate. You could have just said hello and I would have said hello back,” the angel chuckled before grimacing in pain.

“I did not shoot you down because I wanted to meet you, you ass!” Kyungsoo protested.

“Well, anyway. Since you already shot me down and we’re meeting, I’m Jongin,” he said and before Kyungsoo could reply, the angel’s eyes shut and he went still. Very still. Panicking, Kyungsoo checked his pulse. It wasn’t strong but it was steady. He was just unconscious, apparently. 

Kyungsoo exhaled in relief. The last thing he wanted was a dead angel on his hands. His head was a tangled mess of knots but he had to figure out what to do next—how he would move this man to safety all on his own, and whether he needed to administer first aid or whether the angel. . .whether Jongin’s body was repairing the injuries as he lay there, unconscious.

He knelt there, mired in indecision. What was he going to do? He tried contacting his teammates but it was useless. His comm unit was dead. 

And Fate, it seemed, was not done with Kyungsoo as five to six bolts of lightning hammered the ground less than thirty feet away from them.

 _SHIT_.

Now he not only had an unconscious angel to evac, he had an electrical storm to navigate as well. He was seriously _so fucking done_ with tonight.


	5. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of things lost and found

  
  
**_The Opal Forest_**  
  
Sehun didn’t feel like he was dying. Not exactly. He just felt like all the energy in his body had trickled away, like it had seeped out of his pores somewhere between the time the demon had clawed his arm and the time he’d glided down to a clearing in the heart of the Opal Forest. He had stumbled a little when he landed so it was just as well he’d let Jongin talk him into leaving the combat zone. It should have been a smooth landing. Zero effort. And yet here he was, breathless and breaking out in cold sweat as he popped one ampoule, and then another. 

He had been so careful with his defensive and evasive moves but the red demon was so much faster and stronger than the purple demons he was used to. He’d been so fucking careful and yet those talons had gotten past his sword and shield. If they had to fight more than one of those red beasts at a time. . .Gods, Sehun didn’t even want to finish that thought. 

He took a short swallow of water before lying back on the thick, dew-wet grass. He twisted his arm just enough so he could get a look at the thin red line on his left tricep. It was a superficial cut, about two inches long. It stung like fuck but that was nothing unexpected. What worried him was how his entire arm felt cold and numb, and weirdly heavy. When he tried to move it, there was so much resistance from his muscles that he felt like he was trying to move his arm through super thick molasses. 

Just how potent was the red demon’s venom? Was it made of the same stuff as regular demon venom? Or would the antivenom he’d just swallowed do nothing to neutralize the poison? Would his arm become paralysed? Would it need amputation? Would he even make it to sunrise?

He could feel the tide of anxiety rising in him and Sehun knew he couldn’t afford to succumb to fear and panic now. Rivulets of ice were running up and down his arm but he did his best to ignore the discomfort and the doubts that were threatening to bury him. So he just lay there, taking shallow breaths. He caught glimpses through the trees of the aerial duel between Jongin and the demon, and somewhere in the background, there was the gnawing in his chest as he yearned for his soulmate. He missed the warmth of Chanyeol. Missed having him close enough to touch, close enough to trace the dip of the dimple in his left cheek. Sehun let out a shaky breath—he just wanted to see him again. Just once.

_Please._

“Sehun! Sehun, are you there?” Joonmyun called over the headset, his voice sharp and strained.

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm here.” 

“There are two medics on the way—from Cynosura Medical, not Cerulean. They just finished treating a hunter in Tourmaline Valley so they're closest to you.”

“’Kay.” More listlessness was settling into Sehun’s limbs and he barely had the energy to speak.

“Have you taken some ampoules?”

“Yeah.”

“Are they helping?” Joonmyun’s words were infused with deep concern. 

“Too soon to tell. But the venom seems stronger. I dunno. It was a huge fucker so I'm guessing its venom won't be regular strength either. Just a scratch though.”

“Stay hydrated. I gotta go but I'll check on you soon.”

“Sure.”

“Sehun? Take care, okay?”

“I will.” He reached for the drinking bottle that lay on its side a few feet away. But before his fingers could grasp the bottle, his eyes closed and he drifted. . .  
  
 ** _The Azure Forest_**  
  
“Think! What do I do now? Think!” The hunter’s words were like tiny knives that kept tearing holes in Jongin’s consciousness and he sighed.

Jongin wanted to sleep. More than anything, he wanted to sleep. So he could rest, so he could heal. He wanted _so much_ to sleep but the hunter’s agitated voice kept poking at his senses—stealing in, pulling at him. And as if his noisy soulmate wasn’t disruptive enough, there were the even noisier sounds of the storm. The thunder kept crashing like inconsiderate, gigantic cymbals and the wind kept wailing in the trees and then there was the rain. It was like needles on his skin and his clothes were clinging to him and damnit—what did an angel need to do to get some fucking sleep in this shithole? 

“We need to get out of here before we get fried, or before we get crushed by a falling tree that’s been fried. Think, Do Kyungsoo, think!” 

It hurt to smile but Jongin couldn’t help doing it anyway. His soulmate had a name, and it was Do Kyungsoo. _Kyung-soo_. He liked the way the syllables sounded in his head, and he especially liked the way the silver arrow had stop hurting, now that he and Do Kyungsoo had met. Once or twice, Jongin had let himself fantasize about his first encounter with his unknown soulmate. It had been a long, long time ago, when he was fifteen? Or was it sixteen? He couldn’t remember any of the specifics, but he was very sure of at least one thing—none of his fantasies had ever involved his soulmate shooting him down in mid-flight. 

He wondered how his best friends would react to all this? Sehun would probably laugh and make the odd joke or two and let the issue rest, but _Luhan_. Damnit, that asshat was never going to let Jongin live this down. Not for the next sixty years at least, fuck his life. He had to make sure that Luhan never ever found out about this. Like _never_. But there was no time to worry about how he was going to keep this whole debacle a secret from Luhan. Jongin’s immediate concern was to stop lying here like a painted target for a fatally placed lightning bolt. 

“We should get out of here before we get our asses fried,” Jongin finally said.

“What the fuck?” Kyungsoo turned on his heel abruptly, shock written all over his face. “You’re supposed to be unconscious,” he said in a tone that was almost accusatory. Even when he looked grave and borderline angry, Do Kyungsoo was attractive. Jongin liked the strong curve of his jaw and the raw emotion in his eyes.

“Well, I was _trying to be_ , but you kept talking and the storm was making such a racket. But anyway, we should go. I don’t need to add getting struck by lightning to my list of current injuries, if that’s okay with you.” And to Jongin’s surprise, the oh-so-serious Do Kyungsoo actually cracked a half smile. 

“You’re nothing like the angels I’ve met.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Jongin watched him curiously.

“It’s not exactly bad. . .I guess.” 

In the distance, the forest flashed a blinding white as multiple streaks of lightning came crashing down. One of the lightning bolts hit a tree and there were sounds of wood splintering and creaking before the entire tree collapsed. The ravaged tree hit the ground with a resounding boom, and both men flinched at the noise and impact. 

Kyungsoo frowned, his forehead lined with worry. “We should go. Can you walk at least?”

“I can limp? I had to land standing so my wings wouldn’t be crushed. But I was dropping too fucking fast and. . .well, I have a few hairline fractures. They’ll heal over the next two days but I have to stay off my feet as much as I can in the meantime. I’m sorry, but I can’t move real quick right now.”

“Fuck.” Kyungsoo swore. “That won’t work. The storm’s getting worse. We can’t stay in the open much longer.”

“There’s no shelter nearby?”

“There’s only one place I can think of that’s safe from lightning and falling trees. It’s about. . .I don’t know, about eight minutes’ walk from here—less than five if you run.”

“Do we have eight minutes?” Jongin asked, wincing as lightning split another tree about forty feet away.

“No. I’m going to have to carry you. Don’t make a fuss.”

“What?!”

Kyungsoo turned around so his back was towards Jongin. “There’s no delicate way to put this but please get the fuck on.” 

“You want me to climb onto your back?” Jongin’s tone was incredulous. 

“There’s no time, angel. Just get the fuck on.” Kyungsoo wasn’t even trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. Jongin was about to argue that his name wasn’t _angel_ when the sky launched into another elaborate strobe light show. Fuck, the lightning really was getting worse. There was no more time to waste. He still hurt all over so he wrapped his arms gingerly around Kyungsoo’s shoulders before boosting himself up, and wrapping his long legs around the hunter’s narrow waist. When Kyungsoo’s palms slipped beneath his thighs so he could keep a steady grip on him, Jongin took a sharp intake of breath at the unexpected contact. He hadn’t been piggybacked since he was a child and he’d forgotten the mechanics of where everything went. 

“Did I hurt you? Did I press against any of your injuries? Tell me where to put my hands,” There was concern in Kyungsoo’s voice and Jongin liked it. 

“On my dick?”

“Fuck off!” He sounded so offended that Jongin couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I’m _joking_! Your hands are fine just where they are.”

“Try to resist the urge to be a complete jackass,” Kyungsoo sounded very aggrieved as he straightened his legs and started walking. A few steps later and Kyungsoo was running, his powerful legs transporting himself and Jongin through the rain-soaked forest. 

Meanwhile, Jongin was being subjected to the most exquisite kind of torture as he found himself up close to the delicious scent of Kyungsoo mixed with soap and sweat. And even more torturous than that was the sensation of Kyungsoo’s back pressed up against his cock, and the way the muscles in his back rippled as he ran. The fact that their bodies were wet and slick from the rain was just making everything exponentially worse. 

It would be some kind of miracle if he didn’t have a hard-on by the time they reached the shelter. He just hoped that Kyungsoo wouldn’t notice. Just then, the hunter vaulted over an exposed tree root and inertia made Jongin’s crotch grind against Kyungsoo’s strongly-muscled back. He only just managed to stop himself from moaning out loud. 

_Yeah. Fat chance he won’t notice your boner, Kim Jongin_.

Where the fuck was that shelter? They had to get there in like the next two seconds—before he had a chance to humiliate himself beyond all redemption.  
  
 ** _Cynosura_**  
  
When Sehun came to, the first thing that struck him was how obnoxiously bright it was, the glare so harsh he had shut his eyes almost instantly. Then, as his head began to clear a little, he registered the solid weight resting on his right arm. . .the press of smooth cheek, the curve of soft mouth. 

It was Chanyeol. And Sehun gave a weak smile as he tried to lift his left arm. It didn’t hurt as much as it had in the forest. It was still a little cold but that glacial chill from earlier seemed to have dissipated. His arm still had a ways to go before it was back to normal but at least Sehun could lift it enough to comb his fingers through the silky, silver strands of Chanyeol’s hair. There was some residual pain in his arm but the void in his chest was nothing but a pool of warmth now. 

Chanyeol’s eyelids flickered at his touch and then he was peering up at him, eyes brimming with a mixture of relief and joy. That looked like joy didn’t it? 

“Hey,” Chanyeol said in a soft voice, like he was worried that if he spoke at his normal volume, Sehun might somehow shatter. 

“How long was I out?” Sehun said in a voice that was equally soft. He was still too drained and too frail to speak any louder than that. 

“Yixing said you were unconscious when they found you at 3.40 am so. . .six hours at least.”

Sehun closed his eyes and sighed. “Damn, is that all? Why do I feel like I slept for two days?”

“I’m not sure what you were doing counts as sleeping,” Chanyeol said as his fingertips caressed Sehun’s cheek. “The first four hours were really. . .yeah, touch and go.” And for a moment, Chanyeol went really quiet. Sehun had never seen him look so sad and his heart fractured just a tiny bit.

“How are you, stranger? I missed you,” he asked finally.

“I missed you too, Sehunnie. You scared the crap out of me,” Chanyeol half-scolded as tears escaped down his cheeks. 

“Angels are tough bastards, you know. We’re not so easy to get rid of.”

“Well, we mages aren’t so easy to get rid of either. You’re stuck with me, Oh Sehun. Do you hear? Don’t you dare scare me like that again.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Sehun began to say but then they were kissing and he was bone deep happy to be in his soulmate’s arms again. He just let himself bask in Chanyeol’s warmth for a few seconds, keeping the outside world at bay. But Sehun knew he couldn’t keep real life out indefinitely.  
  


✾

  
  
The dark-haired nurse was all brisk efficiency as she took Sehun’s pulse, checked his blood pressure and hooked up a new bag of saline to feed into his IV line. 

“The doctor will be here in ten minutes. Try to rest in the meantime,” she advised and then she was gone with a soft click of the hospital door.

“Jongin—did Jongin get back safely from Opal?”

“About that. I’ll let Luhan and Joohyun fill you in. Are you up to seeing them? They’ve been out in the waiting area since they ended their shift.”

“Yeah, I’d like to know what’s happening with Jongin.” 

Chanyeol nodded, before leaning closer to give him a slightly desperate kiss. Then he squeezed Sehun’s hand and headed for the door. Dread filled Sehun as he recalled how serious Chanyeol’s expression had been. 

_Where are you Jonginnie? Please be safe_.

A few minutes later, Chanyeol opened the door and the twins entered the hospital room—first Joohyun, then Luhan. The doorways at Cynosura Medical Centre were seven feet high and five across to accommodate angel wings, but taller angels still had to do a bit of maneuvering sometimes.

“I’m just going to grab a bite to eat, Sehun. I’ll be back soon,” Chanyeol said with a smile that was a little too forced for Sehun’s liking. He must have scared Chanyeol really badly. Sehun smiled and waved at him and then the door closed and it was just Sehun and the twins left. 

“Glad you’re still in one piece,” Luhan announced as he stood by Sehun’s bed and Joohyun told him off for being insensitive. But Sehun knew better. He knew this was as good as things got with Luhan. Deep down, he cared for Sehun and Jongin even though he had his own peculiar ways of demonstrating his affection. 

“You’re back, Sehunnie,” Joohyun said, her warm, dulcet voice radiating relief as she sat on the bed. Her hands cupped his cheeks as she dropped a kiss on his forehead. “We were so lucky that Minseok was on duty here this morning. And thank the gods the red demon’s venom is similar to the regular demon variety, just four times more concentrated.”

“Minseok?” Sehun asked as Joohyun gripped his hand in her much smaller one.

“He’s—” Luhan’s voice trailed off like he was trying to figure out how to best answer the question. “Minseok is a doctor who specializes in venomology.”

“He’s also Luhan’s soulmate,” Joohyun casually dropped the bombshell.

“JOOHYUN!” 

“That’s. . .news to me.”

“I thought so. Seeing as you didn’t recognize his name,” Joohyun’s tone was matter-of-fact. Sehun mulled over the knowledge that Luhan had a human soulmate. It was suddenly very clear to him now why Luhan never wanted Sehun or Jongin tagging along when he came down to Cynosura. He’d had some guy to impress and he didn’t want a pair of third wheels cramping his style.

“You could have told us, Luhan,” Sehun said wryly.

“Look, I would have, okay? But I’m still trying to convince that asshole he wants me.”

If Sehun had had the energy, he would have given Luhan all the shit he liked to give his friends. But he was exhausted and sick with worry for Jongin, so all he could muster the energy to say was, “Minseok sounds like someone with good taste. I like him already.”

“Fuck off, Sehunnie!” Luhan glared at him but there was no real bite to his words.

“Where’s Jongin?”

“Central and HQ have people scouring the Azure Forest, but it’s a huge area,” Joohyun explained, keeping her expression carefully neutral.

“The Azure Forest? But we were in the Opal Forest. Why would Jongin be anywhere near there?” Sehun’s head was whirling with confusion. None of this made any sense at all. Then Luhan spoke up. 

“We think he was tailing the red demon. But we’re not sure because Joonmyun lost touch with him while he was still in Opal Forest. He’s been uncontactable since. HQ tracked him to the Azure Forest and according to Central, he was hit by a demonhunter arrow—” 

“What the fuck?” Sehun sat bolt upright in bed. 

“It was an accident. The hunter, Do Kyungsoo was shooting at the demon but it moved out of the way and Jongin. . .well, Jongin flew into the path of the arrow. Do Kyungsoo was almost at the crash site when they lost radio contact with him. So now they’re both missing.”

“How bad is it?”

As she answered his question, Joohyun squeezed his hand. “We honestly don’t know. Central’s bioradar couldn’t track them after Jongin crash landed because there was a massive electrical storm. It screwed up everything. The storm only blew over two hours ago. Rescue operations commenced pretty much right away, but there was no sign of either of them. The hunter’s bow and arrows were recovered near the crash site, but that’s all.” 

“This isn’t happening.” Sehun shook his head, refusing to believe what he was hearing. 

“The fact that Jongin wasn’t at the crash site is a good thing. I know he’s out there, Sehun. And I know we’ll find him, or he’ll find us. Knowing him, he’ll just stroll out of wherever he’s been laying low and ask why the forest is crawling with so many people, what the fuck?” Luhan was trying his best to be positive for his sake, but Sehun could tell he was worried.

“We have lots of angels searching the area and Luhan and I will be heading there too. We just wanted to make sure you were okay first.”

“But can’t they find them with the bioradar? Now that the storm is over?”

“They scanned the entire forest for their heat signatures before the search teams went in. Bioradars are useless when there’s too many people in the area. But they found nothing. Chances are they’re underground or in some cave. That would make them invisible to bioradar scans. Yixing, the medic who found you and brought you here? Do Kyungsoo is his teammate and according to Yixing, he’s one of the best trackers they’ve got. If anyone can keep Jongin alive in that forest, he can. They’ll show up, you’ll see.”

“I’ll be happier when Jongin’s in front of me where I can see him,” Sehun said miserably.

“We all will,” Luhan said, clasping Sehun gently on his right shoulder.  
  
 ** _The Azure Forest_**  
  
Kyungsoo was slowing to a jog but Jongin couldn’t tell if it was because the hunter was tiring or because they were almost at their destination. He honestly hoped it was the latter because he really had to detach himself from Kyungsoo’s back so he would have a chance to get himself under control before he ended up coming in his pants. That would be awkward. So, so awkward. Jongin hadn’t had such poor self-control since he was a fifteen year-old so he was more than a little upset with himself. 

“Are you tired? I can get off and walk the rest of the way,” Jongin offered. 

“It’s fine. We’re here.” Kyungsoo sounded a little tense as he came to a halt in front of what looked like a curtain of vines. Then he bent his knees a little before letting go of Jongin’s thighs so he could dismount. Once Jongin was on his feet, Kyungsoo bent forward, hands on thighs, panting from all the exertion. 

“I’m sorry you had to carry me,” Jongin said quietly, his voice tinged with regret.

“It’s not a problem. But we need to get inside now. The further we are from the lightning, the happier I’ll be.”

“I’m still trying to figure out what ‘inside’ means.” Jongin scanned the surrounding area but all he saw were trees, and trees were potential death traps in an electrical storm. It had to be past dawn by now but the forest was still shrouded in darkness when it wasn't being lit up by lightning. 

“Follow me,” Kyungsoo said as he pushed the thick veil of vines aside. It was dark but that was never an obstacle for angels and hunters who were designed for nocturnal combat with demons. Jongin squinted and saw glimpses of rock. He shuddered. 

The _shelter_ Kyungsoo had run through the night to deliver them to was _a cave_. A fucking cave. Of all the things angels hated, caves ranked pretty damned high on the list. Forests were challenging enough with their towering canopy, but the confined walls of a cave? He might not survive the experience. 

_No_. He'd never set foot in a cave and he wasn't about to set foot in one now. 

“Come on, angel. We're wasting time.”

“You calling me _angel_ , is that like a term of endearment?” Jongin asked. It was a delaying tactic more than anything but also, he just liked teasing Do Kyungsoo. The hunter’s eyes always sparked with annoyance (Jongin liked to think it was passion) when Jongin teased him and it made him look incredibly handsome.

“Don't be an idiot,” Kyungsoo growled.

“I mean you could call me by my name, but you keep saying _angel_ instead. The way someone would call someone they love _baby_ or _darling_. So it's entirely possible that _angel_ could be a term of endearment.”

“I don’t do terms of endearment and I don't do romance.”

“That's okay. Neither do I. We're perfect for each other, do you see?”

“All I see is that we're going to get our asses killed if we waste any more time talking crap out here in the open.”

A few streaks of lightning clubbed the ground twelve feet away, like a dramatic full stop to Kyungsoo’s sentence. Jongin flinched in shock. 

“I don’t like enclosed spaces. And caves are just. . .I’ve never even been in a cave.”

“Oh,” Kyungsoo said. There was an expression of surprise on his face, but that was it. Just surprise. Jongin didn’t see any signs of judgement there. “Well, I don’t like heights. I mean I’m okay if I’m in a high place and I don’t go right up to the edge, but I prefer being on the ground. Anytime. I’ve never been on a hot-air balloon or gone hang-gliding.” 

“You should fly with me one day,” Jongin smiled, almost forgetting his anxiousness about the cave. 

“Fuck, no! You might drop me! No, no thanks, angel.”

“You mean, _Jongin_?”

“Yeah, Jongin. Whatever. No flying for me. If I were meant for flying, I would have been born an angel, not a hunter.”

 _BOOM_! More lightning and it was getting closer.

“Get the fuck inside!” Kyungsoo yelled.

“Only if you agree to fly with me one day.”

“NO!”

 _BOOM_. Closer still.

“Ok, ok. I’ll fly with you one day but knock me out first. Preferably with some premium single malt.”

“We’ll talk about it when we’re not in danger of being struck by lightning,” Jongin laughed. Then he closed his eyes and stepped into the cave entrance. As soon as he opened his eyes, the walls seemed to close in on him, sheets of rock moving closer and closer, and his feet stopped moving. 

Kyungsoo’s voice was like a balm. “We just have to get through this tunnel, Jongin. Beyond that, the cavern is huge with really high ceilings and skylights. It’ll be okay.”

“I just don’t know,” Jongin protested, feet welded to the dusty floor of the cave. Then he felt a strong, warm hand in his and the turmoil in his head calmed a little. 

“You’ll be okay,” Kyungsoo said as he tugged him by the hand.

Jongin didn’t know if he’d be okay. All he knew was that he didn't want Kyungsoo to stop holding his hand, so he began to walk.


	6. Attraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of rock and water

  
  
**_The Azure Forest_**  
  
Jongin gripped Kyungsoo’s hand tightly as he followed him deeper into the cavern. The hunter had procured a powerful flashlight from the recesses of his backpack. Jongin was glad they wouldn’t have to stumble through inky darkness. Kyungsoo was true to his word. The narrow tunnel didn’t run very long and they were soon in a large, high-ceilinged cavern which didn’t feel anywhere near as oppressive. 

“The roof is pretty high up. You’ll be okay, right?” Kyungsoo asked as he directed the beam of the flashlight upwards. His voice had an edge of worry to it like he was half-expecting Jongin to have a claustrophobia-induced meltdown on his watch. The light bounced eerily off its domed surface, but the only thing Jongin’s overworked mind and overworked heart could process was the fact that the roof was easily more than a hundred feet above the cave floor.

Relief swept through him, and he could already feel himself taking deeper, less ragged breaths. There was more than enough ceiling room for him to stretch out his battered, blood-stained wings. He’d been keeping them close to his body since he’d crashed through the trees, and his wing muscles were aching for release. 

“I think I will,” Jongin replied but he continued to hang on to Kyungsoo’s hand like it was a lifeline. If Kyungsoo minded, he wasn’t letting it show and Jongin was grateful for it.

“Windows,” Kyungsoo said simply as he trained the flashlight at two oyster-shaped cavities in the roof of the cave. Jongin could see pieces of storm-ravaged sky through the skylights, could feel the muted, soft rain and wind on his face. It wasn't open sky but it was better than solid rock. Between dealing with his irrational fears and getting speared by lightning, Jongin reckoned he would take his chances in this cave with Kyungsoo. 

They walked a little further on before Kyungsoo came to a halt. He pointed the flashlight at the far end of the cave. Spread out before them, like a serene blue blanket, was a pool that was about a hundred feet across in diameter. It was an ethereal, azure blue in the glow of the flashlight. He should have known. Of course, Kyungsoo hadn’t brought him to any basic, ordinary cave. Kyungsoo had brought him to a grotto with windows and a big ass bathtub. 

He could actually clean his wounds and bathe and gods, could he fucking sleep after he got clean? He’d been riding a wave of adrenaline but now that they were out of immediate danger, the adrenalin was dissolving into nothingness and his body was entering the initial stages of crash mode. 

Angels usually got by with three hours of sleep a night, but this had been anything but a normal night. Most of his lighter injuries had healed by now, and he was limping a little less, but there was no getting around the fact that he needed to sleep. And he needed to do it soon, so the hairline fractures could knit themselves together, so the bone tissue could regenerate, so he could walk properly again. 

Jongin’s cuts and bruises from the impact had healed well enough that they were only causing him minor discomfort rather than pain. His body generally recovered swiftly from injury but the impact of the fall had been tremendous. Jongin shouldn't have been able to bounce back anywhere near this fast. Could his soulmate’s presence have sped things up? Enhanced his body's ability to heal? 

The arrow wound on his shoulder had formed a pink scab and only throbbed a little when he moved his arm a certain way. It was nothing Jongin couldn’t handle though. It was nothing like the searing pain that had overwhelmed him when Kyungsoo’s arrow had torn through his flesh. Twice. 

As for his injured wing. . .he didn’t really want to think about his injured wing right now. His instincts told him it would heal okay after a while, though. He had managed to get some movement out of it on his downward plunge and that had been a good sign. He knew the wound wouldn’t get infected because hunter arrows were made of light—cauterizing flesh as they passed through it. Arrows of Truth were fatal to demons because light was anathema to the foul creatures. They didn’t do much to harm angels and hunters unless they struck a vital organ. 

As far as Jongin was concerned though, his wings were pretty much a vital organ. The thought of not being able to soar and glide above the clouds, of not being able to taste the strange sweetness of vapor crystals on his lips and tongue when he dove through misty cloud cover—

No, he would rather not think about his wing at all. All he wanted to do right now was to jump into that inviting water and wash away all traces of dirt and grime, sweat and blood. 

“I’m going to kill the flashlight, ok? To conserve battery life,” Kyungsoo announced. “The storm might last for hours yet. To date, the longest recorded storm in this forest lasted more than five hours. I’m hoping this storm isn’t trying to outdo it.” He gave a hollow laugh before continuing, “I mean the sun will appear eventually but in the meantime, we shouldn't use the flashlight more than we have to. Better safe than sorry. Are you okay with it being a little dark?”

 _A little dark?_ They were in an unlit cavern. Didn’t Kyungsoo mean _bloody fucking dark_? It was a good thing Jongin had no issues with the dark. That was a fact he would probably keep a secret from Kyungsoo for a little while longer, though. 

“Just don’t let go of my hand,” Jongin warned as he gripped Kyungsoo’s hand tighter. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Kyungsoo said, sounding like he was trying to restrain himself from throttling Jongin. To Jongin’s great satisfaction, though, Kyungsoo didn’t make any move to release his hand. 

_Click_. 

The single beam of white light went out, and Jongin braced himself for darkness to envelop the place. He waited. . .but instead of pitch black, the grotto was bathed in a otherworldly blue radiance. The pool looked like it had been lit from below—the water alive with blue fire. Was it bioluminescence? Over the years, Jongin had flown over patches of sea that glowed turquoise, silver, lavender and amber. But this was the first time he’d ever seen bioluminescence up close, and the indigo blue glow was just breathtaking. It was so stunning he could almost forget he was trapped inside a chamber of rock. 

_Almost_ , he thought, as his fingers curled more tightly around Kyungsoo’s. 

“I don’t know if angels even—” Kyungsoo gave him an appraising look, “sweat? But hunters do and I had to run more than my usual today, so I really, really need to clean up. You can either do the same or you can stay here.” A couple of seconds later, there was a thud as Kyungsoo’s backpack slid to the ground. 

“I’m letting go of your hand now, angel,” Kyungsoo said quietly and then the hunter’s hand slipped out of Jongin’s grasp as he dove into the water, fully dressed. 

The water had looked tempting from the start but now that Kyungsoo was actually swimming in it? Jongin wasn’t even going to hesitate. If Luhan were here, he would be telling him Kyungsoo was the distraction he sorely needed, and what the fuck was he waiting for? Just get his ass in the water and get dicked already. Or do the dicking. Whichever worked better. He could always count on Luhan to reduce everything into an innuendo or a quest for the ultimate hook-up. Jongin knew better though. There was so much more to Luhan than what he chose to let the world see. 

But Luhan or no Luhan, Jongin knew it would be dumb as fuck not to get into the pool with Kyungsoo. It was a perfect opportunity to get to know the man. And he could get clean while he tried to chat up his soulmate. Definitely a win-win situation.

Mind made up, Jongin walked to the water’s edge before sitting on the bank. Wings were not conducive to diving and injured wings, even less so. Holding his breath, Jongin lowered himself carefully into the water. Once he was waist deep in the water, he yelped at how cold it was and somewhere in the distance, he heard Kyungsoo’s deep laugh. The timbre of it made him feel warm all over despite the chill. Angels were supposed to be invulnerable to cold, but Jongin’s body was repairing itself and it would be susceptible to heat and cold until it was completely healed. 

It didn’t take Jongin long to locate Kyungsoo. The hunter was cleaving through the water with smooth, lazy strokes. His movements were elegant. . .mesmerizing. He had been wearing his black t-shirt when Jongin looked away, but he was shirtless now and Jongin couldn't have looked away, not if his life had depended on it. When Kyungsoo reached the bank, he stood up, water cascading off his body in sheets. Jongin’s eyes were drawn, irresistibly, to the hunter’s broad shoulders and leanly muscled chest, his strong, toned forearms. And his dark nipples, gods help him. 

Kyungsoo was naked. Jongin’s soulmate was naked and he had only met him maybe half an hour ago? Maybe less? How had things come to this? They’d just met and Kyungsoo was naked, or at least half naked, anyway. To his great relief (or disappointment, depending on how honest he wanted to be with himself), Jongin glimpsed the shadow of black fabric clinging to Kyungsoo’s legs and hips beneath the water. He wasn’t completely naked at least. Not that this made a shred of difference to Jongin’s cock, which was pressing insistently against the confines of his pants, fuck his life. Why wasn’t the cold water keeping his body’s reactions under control?

Kyungsoo began wringing water out of what Jongin guessed was his black t-shirt. Droplets of water were rolling down his face and his leanly muscled chest and Jongin couldn’t stop staring as Kyungsoo focused all his attention on his task. He stretched out the corners of the now twisted shirt as evenly as he could before flinging the excess water out of it. Then he draped it methodically over the rock bank, presumably to dry. As he watched his slow, sure movements, Jongin got the feeling that Do Kyungsoo took the same measured approach with everything he tackled in life. 

When Kyungsoo was done with the shirt, he swam further out—pinpoints of indigo blue light swirling around him as he glided through the water. He stopped moving, finally, at the center of the pool. The water was deeper where Kyungsoo was and he dipped lazily below the surface, staying out of sight for a few seconds. When he came back up for air, his glossy, jet black hair was clinging to his scalp. He shook his head, sending a shower of water-beads flying, and Jongin let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding.

Gods, he was gorgeous. 

Do Kyungsoo was gorgeous and also. . .very, very naked, Jongin realized belatedly as Kyungsoo wrung out two more items of clothing. Black cargo pants and what looked like black boxer briefs. A pair of very wet, black boxer briefs. Jongin had thought the ride here on Kyungsoo’s back would be the death of him. He’d been so sure that nothing else would ever come as close to killing him. But as he watched Kyungsoo move through the water, and caught tantalizing glimpses of bare skin and flowing limbs, Jongin discovered just how wrong he’d been, how very, very wrong.  
  


✾

  
  
Kyungsoo could sense the angel’s eyes following him as he swam, and he felt himself going a few degrees harder despite the too-cool temperature of the water. He was so fucking glad he’d ditched his underpants earlier. He really had had just about enough of his pants strangling his cock. 

Kyungsoo wasn’t even sure how he’d made it from the crash site to the cave with the angel’s boner pressing against his back. It had been almost a year since he’d cared enough to hook up with someone, so all that sweet provocation rubbing against his back had damned near ended him. It was still a mystery to him how he’d managed to keep on running when he’d had such an almighty bad case of blue balls to contend with. 

Thank the gods, he’d had his backpack strapped to his front because it had made the perfect shield. Not that it really mattered in the end since Jongin had probably been too embarrassed about his own boner at the time to worry about whether Kyungsoo had one. 

He would never, in a million years, have imagined that he would aim his arrow at a demon and end up shooting down an angel. _Never_. Not in a million years. In the same way, he had never imagined that he would make the acquaintance, albeit unintentional, of his soulmate’s boner within fifteen minutes of first meeting him. It had just been the most unbelievably surreal and fucked up night. 

He still didn’t know how he felt about having this angel for a soulmate but Kyungsoo had never been one for lying to himself. Jongin was very different from his concept of what an angel was supposed to be like. He wasn’t arrogant or remote and he wasn’t even an ass. Well, he was _mostly_ not an ass. He could have strangled Jongin earlier when he’d casually asked Kyungsoo to put his hand on his dick. It wasn't that Kyungsoo had been offended. Not at all. Kyungsoo had been frustrated because he had wanted very, very much to oblige, and that was so unlike how he'd normally react to a stranger.

All his life, Kyungsoo’s instinct had been to stay away from angels, to dislike them even. But this angel. . .this angel was an alluring flame he was powerless to step away from. Kyungsoo was so curious about this angel that he wanted to stick his hand into the incandescence and he did not fucking care if he got burnt. An angel. Of all the things. What had Fate been smoking when she’d decided to pair him off with an angel? 

Sounds of water splashing interrupted his reverie and Kyungsoo bit his bottom lip. The angel was close by, very close. The water was crystal clear and lit by tiny, moving, indigo light bulbs. It was quite possible that Jongin was getting an eyeful of Kyungsoo’s ass at this very moment. If he turned around now, it was also quite possible that Jongin would get an eyeful of his semi-erect cock. 

Kyungsoo didn’t like giving people any kind of advantage over him. He didn’t like people to know they had any kind of power over him, so Kyungsoo should have hated the idea of letting Jongin see him in this semi-aroused state. He should have hated it but at the same time, some primal part of him really wanted Jongin to know how turned on he was by him. There was also the fact that the angel had had a very obvious boner when Kyungsoo was carrying him through the forest. The boner could have been a purely physiological reaction but Kyungsoo liked to think that Jongin might be just a little bit attracted to him too.

They were soulmates so it was a matter of time before he and Jongin got together. Or at least that was how things usually were for the inhabitants of Orbis and Cerulean City. Kyungsoo had never bought into any of that soulmate-soulbond shit, but at the same time, he had never expected to be this fucking curious about his soulmate and what made him tick. Kyungsoo wasn’t a curious person but he had an inexplicable need to decode this angel, or rather _his_ angel, if Fate had her way. 

Kyungsoo was confused and curious and attracted and he honestly didn’t know what to do. So he did the only thing he could do and turned around—only to be confronted with a sight he was completely unprepared for. The angel had been fully clothed the last time he looked but he was _naked_ now. Very, very naked. 

For a brief moment, Kyungsoo just shut out all his reservations and drank it all in. It was almost too much. . .Jongin's lush bronze skin, his broad shoulders and bitter chocolate nipples, his leanly muscled arms and the flat, sculpted planes of his stomach. Kyungsoo’s gaze was beginning to wander below Jongin's waist when he stopped himself. Almost too late, he suddenly remembered where he was. He’d been _this_ close to staring inappropriately at a near-stranger. What had come over him? It had to be the soulbond. He was never this reckless.

“What happened to your clothes,” Kyungsoo half-yelled.

“Are you the only one who’s allowed to be naked in here?” Jongin asked, unperturbed as he ran his hand through his hair. Jongin hadn’t entirely submerged himself in the properly yet. His chest and shoulders were still dry while his formerly rain-drenched hair was partially dry. The golden strands tumbled over his forehead in the most bewitching way and Kyungsoo’s fingers itched to touch. 

“Of course not! But your shoulder still hurts. How did you even reach up to get your clothes off? I didn’t feel anything—” Abruptly, Kyungsoo broke off in mid-sentence. _Damnit_. He'd revealed way more than he’d intended.

“What do you mean by you didn’t feel anything?” Jongin gave him an assessing look.

Kyungsoo could have lied but honestly, what was the point? Making a slightly strangled noise, he admitted, “When the arrow hit you. . .I felt it too.”

“I don’t understand,” Jongin said, looking genuinely confused.

“I felt the pain in my shoulder, in the exact same spot,” Kyungsoo explained, the fingers of his right hand unconsciously rubbing the phantom puncture site.

“And when I landed? You felt that too?” Jongin was starting to look and sound a little distressed.

“Yeah.”

“And you carried me here even though you were in pain?!”

“Look, it’s no big deal. It didn’t hurt much after a while, anyway. You should know.” Kyungsoo shrugged. 

“I can’t believe you.” Jongin sounded exasperated but there was something like admiration in his eyes.

“Well, it’s not like I could leave you out there to be chargrilled. Anyway, forget about that. You still haven’t answered my question. How did you get your clothes off?”

“Magic.” 

“Bullshit.”

Jongin chuckled. “I’m serious. We have a simple spell for getting into and out of clothes, because wings are. . .complicated. We’re anatomically challenged, you know? So this just makes everyone’s lives easier.”

“I never thought about it but yeah, I guess that makes a lot of sense.”

Jongin moved closer to Kyungsoo, burnished wing tips dragging heavily through the water. 

“Is the water always this fucking cold?”

“Your body gets used to it after a while and then it doesn’t feel so bad,” Kyungsoo said as he trod water. “I thought angels were pretty immune to the cold?” Kyungsoo didn’t know a whole lot about angels, having never taken much interest in them, but he did know at least that much. Angels spent a lot of time in the stratosphere and it got pretty cold up there, after all.

“We don’t normally feel the cold but my body is focusing all its resources on healing my injuries and that makes it about as weak as a human body right now. So don’t break me, Kyungsoo. Okay?” Jongin smiled as he stopped moving through the water. There was only about two feet of distance between them now. 

Kyungsoo valued his personal space, feeling unsettled when people were less than three feet away from him. Jongin was closer even than that and yet Kyungsoo did not feel a driving need to increase the bubble of space between them. If anything, he wanted Jongin to come closer, wanted Jongin to invade his personal space and touch him. Gods damn all this soulmate-soulbond garbage. He didn't want any of it.

“Don't be an idiot. Why would I want to break you?”

“An angel can hope.” Jongin's smirk was flirtatious. Suggestive even, and Kyungsoo wanted to wipe it off. With his mouth, damnit. Kyungsoo wanted to be annoyed with the angel but all he could think of was kissing that full, sensual mouth. It was infuriating. 

“You wish,” Kyungsoo grumbled. To his relief, all Jongin did was laugh. Then, he let the matter rest.

“I hope my dick doesn’t get bitten by those things.” Jongin gestured at the luminous blue dots as he lowered himself further into the water. “What are they called anyway?” 

“Dinoflagellates. I’ve swum here lots of times and they’ve always left me alone. They’re not interested in your dick. And we just met so you can stop bringing up your dick every ten fucking minutes.”

“I just wanted to make sure my dick wasn’t in danger of being chewed on, that’s all,” Jongin said reasonably but his eyes were radiating pure mischief.

Kyungsoo glared. “They’ve never done anything to mine so yours should be safe. And you’re doing it again, talking about your—” He let his words trail off purposefully.

“My dick? I’m not doing it on purpose. I _swear_ ,” Jongin chuckled. “So you've swum here lots of times?”

“Lots,” Kyungsoo nodded.

“Alone? Or with. . .a friend? Or was it friends?”

“Just me. I've never told anyone about this place. Never seen it on a map either.”

Jongin’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “But how is that even possible? A place this stunning? No one else has discovered it? How did you even find it in the first place?”

“When I have the day off, I sometimes come to this forest. I like being out here on my own—just me and the trees and the animals, you know?”

“I go off on my own too, sometimes. So I totally get that. Well, not the forest part maybe but the doing things on my own part.”

“Yeah. It helps me clear my head. So there was this one time I was hiking in this area, and ended up resting near the entrance of this cave. It just looked like a wall of rock covered in a thick layer of vines. Nothing unusual. I mean there are vine-covered boulders and cliffs all over this forest. There were pebbles lying around and I needed something to do, so I decided I’d throw them at a spot in the centre of the vine-covered wall. Like target practice, you know?” 

“Sure.”

“The thing was, when I actually threw a pebble at the so-called _target_ , it didn’t just hit the target, it went sailing right through it. I thought I was imagining it so I threw a couple more pebbles at it and they all vanished beyond the vines. So I cleared an opening through the vines and well, I discovered this cave and pool that day.” 

“And you’ve managed to keep it a secret from everyone for how long?”

“Two years.” Kyungsoo gave a short, humorless laugh. “I’m lowkey regretting it now, though. It’s the first place my teammates would have thought to look for us.”

“Do you think they’re searching for us now?”

“Nah. Amber has to prioritize the safety of the team over the safety of two individuals who may or may not be dead. It’s what a team leader should do and I don’t blame her. They’re probably waiting out the storm in some cave, too. Central and HQ are probably sending other search teams over and the minute the heavy lightning stops, they’ll be crawling everywhere.”

“We’ll probably have dragged our asses out into the sunlight by the time the storm clears,” Jongin pointed out. 

“True. I just want the lightning to fucking calm down so everyone can go home and get some damned sleep.” 

“Sleep would be good. I need to sleep,” Jongin agreed. “But I need to get clean first. It would be so much easier if I could swim properly right now.”

“Why can’t you swim properly now?”

“Because my wings are in the way,” Jongin said as he splashed some water over his face and hair. 

“But aren’t they always in the way? I never thought about it but I just assumed angels couldn’t swim because the wings. . .I don’t know but they don’t seem real conducive to swimming.”

“Well, I can usually make them go away, the wings I mean. There’s a spell that Veritas lets us use when we have to do certain things. But my wings aren’t at optimum right now so making them vanish would only injure them more. They need to heal all the way through before I can use any kind of magic on them.”

“ _Certain things_?” 

“Well, you already know about swimming. Sleeping can also be really uncomfortable if your wings are in the way. So when we need to swim or sleep, we say _somnus_ and our wings go away until we make them come back again with a different spell.”

“So you can just make your wings disappear any time you want by saying _somnus_?”

“That's not how it works, Kyungsoo,” Jongin chuckled. “This is a really specific spell. An angel's wings are an important part of who they are, so Veritas only allows angels to magic away their wings for three reasons. Sleep is the most common one because sleeping on your tummy is a pain in the fucking ass.”

“Okay, so you make your wings vanish when you need to sleep and when you need to swim. What's the third reason?” Kyungsoo said, frowning as he tried to imagine what Jongin looked like without wings. 

“Well, having sex when you have wings can be. . .restrictive. The positions, you know? So he allows us to use the spell when we need um, relief.”

“Whoa! Whoa! You're oversharing!” Kyungsoo held his hands up as if to say _stop_.

“Am I? We’ll need to talk about sex things sooner or la—” Jongin tried to reason, but Kyungsoo cut in and took the conversation off on a tangent.

“Do they hurt? Your wings? I can’t tell because I can’t feel them. . .I don’t have any, I guess.”

“They don’t hurt. Just a slight ache where the arrow went through it.”

“I'm sorry about that. My arrow hitting you, I mean. I’m sorry it almost got you killed.” Feeling awkward, Kyungsoo avoided Jongin’s eyes and occupied himself with scooping up glowing blue water and pouring it back into the pool.

“I'm not,” Jongin said, voice quiet. 

“What?!”

“I’m not sorry you shot me down.”

“I didn’t shoot you down! I wasn’t aiming at you, what the fuck!”

“I know,” Jongin laughed. “But I’m glad you hit me, anyway.”

Kyungsoo shook his head. “You’re crazy.” 

“Are we going to keep doing this?”

“Doing what?” Kyungsoo’s hands stopped gliding through the water. What did the angel mean?

“Are we going to keep ignoring the fact we're soulmates?” Jongin was looking right at him, his eyes dark and penetrating. 

“Oh. . . _that_.” Kyungsoo pressed the back of his hand to his forehead.

“So you did notice, after all.” Jongin had moved even closer to him and Kyungsoo felt a stirring in his wrist. The skin beneath the golden feather seemed to be waking up.

“I can see things glow just fine,” Kyungsoo admitted as he recalled the way their soulmarks had glimmered simultaneously when he'd kneeled beside Jongin at the crash site. His feather had radiated soft, golden light and the angel’s, soft, silver light. Kyungsoo had appreciated the beauty of the moment even though he'd been crippled by blinding pain at the time.

“I couldn't tell from the way you've been treating it like the elephant in the room.” Jongin's face was close, so close to his now. The angel was at least four inches taller and Kyungsoo had to look up to meet his eyes. 

“Can I touch it? Your soulmark?” Jongin’s expression was such an irresistible mixture of curious and fascinated that Kyungsoo nodded. He didn’t like people touching him, not even people he knew well. And yet, he had no qualms at all about the idea of Jongin touching him. Every fibre, every cell of Kyungsoo’s body seemed mysteriously drawn to the angel standing just a few breaths away from him. Probably Fate fucking with his biochemistry, he sighed inwardly, as he raised his left arm and exposed his wrist.

Softly, gently, the angel trailed his fingertips over the soulmark, setting Kyungsoo’s gold-stained skin alive with fiery tingles. “Have you ever touched one of these? Have you ever touched an angel’s feathers?”

“No. Never.” Kyungsoo shivered a little at how intense the sensations were, as Jongin’s fingers continued to caress his skin.

“An angel won’t let you touch their wings unless they really trust you.” Jongin’s fingers stilled but they didn’t break contact with Kyungsoo’s wrist. “An angel won’t let you touch their wings unless they really want you.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t know any angels,” Kyungsoo said, his voice a little raspy as his body reacted to Jongin’s touch.

“You know me.” 

“We just met,” Kyungsoo pointed out. “I don’t think that counts.”

“Aren't you curious to know what wings feel like?”

“I’m not a curious person.” _Except when it comes to you,_ Kyungsoo didn’t say.

“Do you mind touching them? My wings, I mean? I need help cleaning the blood and dirt off—my combat partner and I usually do that for each other back at HQ. Before we go home. When we get injured, we usually dress each other’s wounds, or a medic does it for us. Visibility is an issue, if you know what I mean.”

“Fuck,” Kyungsoo swore. “I should have cleaned your wounds as soon as we got here. What is wrong with me? I need to get my first aid kit.” What was wrong with him? He had been thinking with his dick and not his brain, that was what was wrong with him. 

“That’s not necessary. Angels only need treatment for deep flesh wounds, third degree burns and venom attacks. I don’t have anything on that list. Everything’s pretty much healed by now.”

“But the arrow—”

“Went right through and cauterized the wound on its way out. It’s already scabbed over. Nothing that can’t wait. I just want to get clean so I can sleep. Sleep will heal me more than any first aid kit could. The storm is still going strong and we can’t go anywhere for now so sleep would be really good.”

Kyungsoo almost collapsed with relief. First of all, because he was glad Jongin was mostly healed, and second, because he’d been trying to figure out how to get out of the water with his dignity intact when his cock was standing at half-mast. Thank fuck for the reprieve.

“You’re sure you don’t need me to clean your wounds?”

“I just need you to clean _me_ ,” Jongin said and there was something in his eyes that made Kyungsoo body spike with desire.

“Don’t make it sound like something rude.”

“Who says it isn’t?” Jongin was laughing again and Kyungsoo wanted to punch him in frustration. If it weren’t for the fact that Jongin looked so exhausted, he might have done it for real. The angel seemed to get a real kick out of sassing him and unsettling him with innuendos. He seemed like way too much of a handful for Kyungsoo--soulbond, or no soulbond. Tersely, Kyungsoo said, “Let’s just get you cleaned up.” 

His eyes on Kyungsoo, Jongin’s thumb stroked the golden feather one last time before he let go of his arm. Kyungsoo’s nipples stiffened at the caress and he only hoped it was too dim in the cave for Jongin to notice. 

When they were in the center of the pool, in the very deepest part of it, Jongin ducked his head under the calm surface of the water. He emerged seconds later, water coursing off his face, scalp and shoulders. Then, he washed his face as best he could before presenting himself to Kyungsoo for help. 

Sprinkles of gold dusted the angel’s collarbones, faint but there. There had been patches of gold all over Jongin’s body at the crash site but the rain had washed most of it away except for a few traces here and there. Kyungsoo wondered if the gold would come off, wondered if it was like the glitter body powder Amber applied on her cheeks and shoulders when she went clubbing. The first time he'd seen her skin shimmer like she’d walked through a shower of fairy dust, he'd expressed his curiosity, asking what it was. Amused, Amber had asked him if he wanted to touch and he’d nodded, his fingertips skating over the gold patches in an impersonal, inquiring way. 

There had been a powdery layer of gold dust clinging to his fingertips when he'd examined them afterwards. He wondered if the bits of sheen on Jongin’s skin would stick to his fingertips the same way. He wanted to touch and explore Jongin's skin the way he had explored Amber's, but Kyungsoo knew, instinctively, that there would be nothing impersonal about his explorations. He didn't need to touch the angel to know that he would unravel and dismantle Kyungsoo in the messiest possible way. 

“You were covered in gold dust when I found you earlier. Most of it is gone now but. . .I’d never seen anything like it before today. What is it?”

“You probably mean amber dust. When wing feathers get yanked out, they shed amber dust. I must have lost quite a few when I was falling through the trees. There’s no pain or dust when we lose our feathers naturally, but when there’s force involved. . .” Jongin’s words trailed off like it hurt to finish the sentence. “I was feeling so much at the time that I didn’t even notice the dust.”

“Will they grow back? The feathers?” There was a pang in Kyungsoo’s chest that he couldn’t explain. Was it his, or the angel’s? Or maybe they had both contributed? All Kyungsoo knew was that he wanted the ache to go away.

Jongin gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. They always do. Usually within a day or two. But I need to sleep so that can happen.”

“I’ll ah, I’ll start cleaning you up then.” Kyungsoo said. He thought about ignoring the amber dust. He thought about passing up the chance to touch Jongin’s beautiful, bronze skin and just go straight to cleaning Jongin’s wings. Kyungsoo _thought about it_ , but in the end, Jongin was an alluring flame he did not want to resist. So Kyungsoo took a deep breath and stuck his hand into the fire, not caring if he got burnt.  
  


✾

  
  



	7. Soulmates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of wounds and water

  
  
**_The Azure Forest_**  
  
Jongin had only spent an hour in Kyungsoo’s company and he could already tell that Kyungsoo was a private person. He was the kind who needed time to acclimatize to people, and he’d had barely even had an hour to get acclimatized to Jongin. To make things even more complicated, Jongin also happened to be the only angel he'd ever met properly (if you could even call that catastrophic encounter a first meeting). 

All things considered, the odds were stacked pretty high against someone as guarded as Kyungsoo agreeing to help Jongin with something as intimate as cleaning his wings. Jongin expected him to give an unequivocal, emphatic _no_ , but a small part of him was still holding out for a _yes_. They were soulmates after all, and Jongin hoped that this fact alone would be reason enough for Kyungsoo to agree. Jongin had never been one to give up easily once his heart was set on something, and his heart was most definitely set on the hunter before him. 

Jongin was pretty much stranded without another person’s help. It wasn't like he could tend to his wings on his own, so he had to at least try. Worst case scenario, Kyungsoo would tell him to fuck off. Best case, the cagey hunter would clean his wings so he could finally pass out and heal properly. He could really have done with Sehun’s quick, expert hands right now. Sehun would have cleaned Jongin’s wings in no time at all. Just like he’d always done. Sehun would have—

There were so many things Sehun would have done but Sehun wasn't here. The knowledge was a crushing weight on Jongin’s chest. It had been the toughest thing to do but Jongin hadn't allowed his heart or mind to dwell on the fate of his best friend since he'd breached the boundaries of the Azure Forest. There really had been no head- or heartspace to worry about another person when every muscle and nerve in his body had been working hard to keep Jongin alive. 

Sehun was one of the people in his life whom Jongin cared for the most, but his instincts had forced him to set all thoughts of his best friend aside so he could channel all his energy into tailing the demon. No angel was ever allowed to forget that Veritas had created their kind for the sole purpose of exterminating his brother Tenebris’ demons. This imperative to hunt and kill demons was encoded into the genetic blueprint of each angel; Jongin was powerless to resist it. 

When he was stalking the red demon, he had compressed all his worry and dread into a ball and hidden it away in a quiet corner of his heart—buried deep in a place where it wouldn't distract him, wouldn’t cause him to commit a fatal error as he battled the demon. In the same way, when Kyungsoo’s arrow had pierced his wing, he had ignored the pain and fear and focused all his resources on slowing down his descent so he wouldn't end up maimed or dead, or worse, forever grounded. 

_Flightless._

Then there had been no time to think of Sehun as Jongin dealt with physical challenge after physical challenge. First had come the blinding agony of impact, then there had been the stress of trying to overcome his claustrophobia as they’d entered the cave. And last, but definitely not least, there had been the physical strain of sharing a confined space with his naked soulmate. Not being able to touch Kyungsoo or be touched by him had been the sweetest kind of agony. It had been both the worst and the best day of his life. _Fuck everything_. 

No, there just hadn’t been any time, earlier, to worry about Sehun. But the frenetic pace of the night had finally slowed down. A little too much, perhaps. Jongin had done such a good job of keeping his concern for Sehun locked away, but telling Kyungsoo that Sehun was the one who usually cleaned his wings had dredged it all up—flooding his head and heart with all the pent up fear and anxiety.

Jongin was so ready for all the emotional and physical whiplash to stop. He just wanted it all to stop so he could sleep—so he could heal. The problem was that Jongin wanted Kyungsoo to touch him even more than he wanted to sleep. If Fate would just let him have his soulmate and some sleep (at the same time, preferably), he would make additional sacrifices to her on Temple Day. Hell, he’d even throw in some offerings to her children, Lux and Veritas as well.

Without warning, Kyungsoo announced that he would start cleaning him up, Jongin almost groaned with relief. He could finally get his wounds and wings taken care of and get some fucking sleep. The relief was intertwined with anticipation, though. 

The thought of Kyungsoo's hands on him. . .Jongin wanted his soulmate's hands on him so fucking much. But at the same time, he was also terrified that it would all be too much for him. What if his self-control shattered at his soulmate’s touch? With everything else that had happened that night, it wouldn't take much to push him over the edge. 

But to have Kyungsoo’s hands on him—Jongin needed this. He couldn't care less about being in control, right now. He didn't care if Kyungsoo saw how desperately he craved his touch. Hands balled into fists, Jongin shut his eyes and braced himself for contact. 

It was like fire. 

Kyungsoo’s fingers on his collarbones and on his skin were like gentle, soothing licks of fire that lit Jongin from the inside out. Jongin couldn't have stopped himself from leaning into Kyungsoo’s touch any more than he could have made his injured wings disappear. His gaze steady, Jongin's eyes met Kyungsoo’s intense, dark ones as the hunter’s roughened fingertips caressed his wet skin. 

“Amber dust,” Kyungsoo explained, his eyes filled with wonder and fascination as he examined his fingers.

“Sorry?”

“From before. The rain didn’t wash all of it off. It feels like powder. Smooth and dry.” Kyungsoo’s voice sounded soft and faraway. Like music from another room.

“The dust usually washes off pretty easy. Maybe it hung around because it wanted to give you an excuse to touch me,” Jongin teased. Then, he closed one eye for half a second as he waited for Kyungsoo to yell, _fuck off_.

But instead of growling with disapproval, Kyungsoo responded by asking in a very calm voice, “Do I need an excuse?” 

His expression gave nothing away as he cupped some water in his right palm and poured it over Jongin’s collarbones. Kyungsoo’s left palm made sweeping movements across his heated skin, making Jongin’s nipples peak with arousal. 

As he poured more water over Jongin’s chest and scrubbed away all traces of the amber dust, Jongin’s cock began to stir, growing hard with arousal. The skin beneath his soulmark was starting to tingle again, in that erotic way it had when he’d been walking towards the landing deck earlier that night. 

“What?” Jongin asked finally, his voice hoarse from shock and lust. 

“Do I need an excuse to touch you?” Kyungsoo’s hand stopped moving as he watched Jongin.

“No, no. I—we’re soulmates. We should just, I don’t know. I can’t speak for you, but I really, really like that you’re touching me, Kyungsoo.”

“We just met,” Kyungsoo pointed out.

“I don’t think our bodies give a shit about that,” Jongin chuckled. “Well, _my body_ doesn’t give a shit, at least. It just wants you. And you have to admit, it’s not every day the love of your life falls from the sky and lands at your feet.” 

“Who says you’re the love of my life?” Kyungsoo raised a sardonic eyebrow. He was such a tough nut to crack but Jongin was determined to hack his way through the crusty exterior. He was patient. He would keep trying for as long as it took. 

“I _could be_ ,” Jongin said, eyeing him speculatively.

“I don’t do romance. Remember?” 

“Fine, forget the love-of-your-life angle. I’m just saying. . .considering the night we just had? I reckon you can overlook the fact that we just met. I mean if you wanted to kiss me or touch me inappropriately, it would be perfectly okay with me. We've already gone past the hand-holding stage, don't you think?” Jongin tried to make his explanation sound as logical and reasonable as possible but Kyungsoo didn't look too convinced.

“I don’t touch people inappropriately,” Kyungsoo insisted, frowning. His hands had stilled, but they hadn’t broken contact with Jongin’s skin.

“I’m not saying you do,” Jongin laughed. “But we’re soulmates. We’re meant to touch each other inappropriately, if you know what I mean.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Kyungsoo grunted. But he didn’t take his hands away, nor did he walk away. Jongin took that as a positive sign. “I’m going to clean the entry wound now,” Kyungsoo said in warning and there was only mild discomfort as he dealt with first the sore skin around the scab, and then the scab itself. 

Kyungsoo’s expression was unreadable as his hands migrated to Jongin's flanks and his stomach—presumably wiping away patches of dirt and blood Jongin had missed. Kyungsoo’s touch was careful and soothing but it also awakened Jongin’s senses n a way that was the very opposite of soothing. 

Inhaling shakily, Jongin shut his eyes and soaked it all up. He soaked it all up and tried very, very hard not to think about how the glide of Kyungsoo’s skin against his own was reducing his self control to ashes. Despite the coolness of the water, Jongin’s cock was full and erect with desire. All Kyungsoo had to do was look down, and he would see undeniable proof of just how much Jongin’s body wanted his. 

Forcing his thoughts away from his aching state of arousal, Jongin gave Kyungsoo his best attempt at a lascivious smile. “I may be ridiculous but I’m also very patient. So whenever you’re ready to touch me inappropriately, I’m here for you.” 

“I swear. If you hadn’t dropped from the sky and broken some bones already? I would—”

“Break me? Bend me over a—” Jongin suggested helpfully.

“You need to shut up before I shut you up myself.”

“How are you going to shut me up? Kiss me? Fill my mouth with your c—”

“I should just punch you in that sassy mouth of yours.” Kyungsoo sounded annoyed as fuck but Jongin could swear there was amusement hovering on the edges of his mouth and eyes.

“With your mouth?” Jongin feigned the most innocent smile he could manage and Kyungsoo couldn’t stop the small, husky laugh that escaped.

“Gods, angel. You have a one-track mind. Truly.”

“I’m not usually like this, I promise.”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“I’m being serious. I’ve never spent much time thinking about all this soulmate-soulbond crap. It was always something I shoved to the back of my mind. For later. Much, much later. But now that I’ve found you, I just. . .I don’t want to waste any time is all.” And for one, brief, dark moment, reality reared its distasteful head as Jongin recalled the events leading up to his foray into the Azure Forest. 

Kyungsoo watched Jongin quietly, a thoughtful expression on his face. Jongin waited but Kyungsoo didn’t say anything, so Jongin took his silence as a sign to continue.

“That red demon we faced tonight. It was. . .I can’t tell you how helpless, how powerless I felt when I was fighting it. It could have killed me without even breaking a sweat. You saw it yourself. All those hunter arrows barely made a dent in its hide. And Sehun and me. . .we tried our fucking hardest but the truthswords couldn't do much more than scratch the demon’s hide. Not to be pessimistic, but we could both die tonight, tomorrow, next week. I just, I don’t want to leave a trail of what-ifs behind me that I could have done something about. You know what I mean?” 

“I—” Kyungsoo sighed before adding awkwardly. “Yeah, I guess I do. Anyway. Let’s just. . .let’s get your wings cleaned first and talk about. . .the other thing later.” 

Jongin nodded, hissing softly as Kyungsoo’s hands started moving across his skin again. It would really be something if Kyungsoo touched him in a less than platonic way, but Jongin would just settle for Kyungsoo touching him any way he fucking wanted, to be honest. Closing his eyes, he channeled small amounts of energy into his wings and lifted them up and out in preparation, the feather tips skimming the surface of the water.

Praying he would be able to hold the fraying threads of his self-control together, Jongin stood waist-deep in the water, his body taut as a bowstring as he waited for Kyungsoo to approach.  
  


✾

  
  
Jongin’s wings felt warm and alive beneath his fingertips—the feathers soft, satiny. Kyungsoo hadn’t expected this element of fragility. Jongin’s wings had seemed so overwhelmingly powerful, so resilient in twisting mid-flight. But nothing even surprised him anymore. The angel was turning out to be the polar opposite of everything Kyungsoo had ever expected angels to be, so why wouldn’t aspects of his body surprise him too? Having his expectations overturned was something that usually irritated Kyungsoo, but he was making all kinds of exceptions tonight. Apparently.

All his life, Kyungsoo had craved control, had always needed to be the one holding the wheel, the one in charge of his own destiny. So the very idea of having a preordained soulmate was one that Kyungsoo had always rebelled against on principle. But that was before he had come face-to-face with his soulmate. He had not been prepared for this angel, had not been prepared for the way he had crashed into his life so dramatically, and so emphatically. 

Kyungsoo disliked the idea of his life partner being decided by Fate, but he couldn’t find it in himself to dislike the soulmate the Arch Goddess had picked out for him. He enjoyed Jongin’s wit and playfulness. He liked the way Jongin teased him so fearlessly. And above all, he liked the fact that Jongin didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by his stone-faced demeanor.

Jongdae had once complained that Kyungsoo was about as welcoming as a snapping turtle, and if he didn’t change his ways, he was going to die alone in some ramshackle cottage on the edge of the woods. Kyungsoo’s tart response had been to argue that it was a good thing then, that it was his goal in life to die alone in some ramshackle cottage on the edge of the woods. Jongdae had snorted in disbelief but he hadn't pursued the matter any further. Even someone as stubborn as Jongdae knew that Kyungsoo was an immovable boulder he couldn't budge. 

Kyungsoo hadn't been completely untruthful. He still wanted to live in a cottage near the Azure Forest when he retired from demon hunting. But he found that he wasn’t so sure now, about the dying alone part. Anyway, all bets were off with the appearance tonight of the seemingly invincible red demon. Jongin had been right. They could die tonight, tomorrow, next week. He might never reach retirement age, let alone acquire a cottage by the woods he could share with his soulmate.

Did he want to share his life with the angel? It was too soon to tell. But there was one thing he was sure of—he was deeply attracted to Jongin. For the past hour, he had been trying his damnedest to shake off the tantalizing glimpses he had caught of Jongin’s warm smile and alluring eyes. His graceful limbs, his tawny hair and skin, his regal wings—not to mention all the other (completely naked) parts of Jongin that Kyungsoo hadn’t allowed himself to look at, fuck his life. 

Catching his bottom lip between his teeth, Kyungsoo steeled himself against the lure of the angel’s beautiful body. He could do this. He could focus on getting the dirt and amber dust off of Jongin’s wing feathers so he could finally rest. Taking a deep breath, he cupped water with his hands and poured it over the burnished feathers, section by section. His gaze fell on the rust-colored stain, stark and discordant in the sea of gold surrounding it. Kyungsoo felt a pang in his chest, sharp and sweet, at the realization that he had put that mark there. It was _his_ arrow that had torn through Jongin’s  
flesh and muscle. 

But there was no time for inconvenient emotions now, and Kyungsoo stifled the pang. They both needed to rest so he needed to work faster. Applying gentle pressure and liberal amounts of water, Kyungsoo washed flakes of soil, amber dust and caked blood off of the burnished feathers. Then his gaze fell on it. The scab. The one he’d put there, he frowned, chest swimming with guilt. 

“I’m sorry,” he said very simply. 

“I told you earlier that I wasn’t sorry you shot me. I still mean it, Kyungsoo.”

“It must have hurt though. I’m still sorry for that.” 

“Don’t be. Please?” Kyungsoo couldn’t see Jongin’s face but his tone seemed sincere. 

“I just—” Kyungsoo trailed off, no longer sure what he’d been trying to say.

“Just. . .finish what you’re doing and we can both get some rest. What do you say?” 

“Okay, fine.” Kyungsoo said reluctantly. “But let me know if I’m pressing too hard.” Kyungsoo regretted his words the moment they left his mouth.

“You can press as _hard_ as you want, you know,” Jongin said, his voice husky and amused. “ _Anywhere_ you want,” he added mischievously and Kyungsoo glared at him. Honestly, the angel had a propensity for saying the most outrageous things—things that should have enraged Kyungsoo but instead, entertained him and made him smile (well, smile _inside_ , anyway). 

The fact that Jongin wasn’t put off by his antisocial nature made Kyungsoo feel a peculiar sense of pride. It was a completely illogical way to react but it made him feel like maybe Jongdae had it wrong. Maybe snapping turtles could have their happy endings too. 

_Maybe_. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he lied as his cock grew just a fraction harder. Kyungsoo's entire body was humming with want for the angel who stood a mere handspan away. All he had to do was just—

 _STOP_. He had to stop this, gods damnit.

It was becoming increasingly clear to Kyungsoo that Kim Jongin was perhaps a bit too much provocation to deal with on a daily basis. He would probably punch him in that sassy mouth of his before the hour was out (assuming he didn’t bend him over a rock and fuck him first). His cock stirred at the mental image and Kyungsoo swore at his lack of self control. This was all Fate’s fault. He had never had any problems with self control prior to tonight. NONE WHATSOEVER.

“You okay? Why are you so quiet? Do my wounds look bad? They feel mostly healed over, though.”

“No. It’s nothing like that.”

“What’s wrong, then?” Jongin’s tone gave nothing away but Kyungsoo was convinced he knew exactly what was going on with Kyungsoo’s libido and he found it all too funny. 

“Nothing,” he bit out. 

There was no question about it. Kyungsoo needed to keep his distance from the angel. He liked his life to progress in a series of manageable, predictable steps—everything in its own time, with Kyungsoo in full control of the proceedings. Jongin, though. Jongin seemed like just the kind of wild card that would quietly, but thoroughly throw all his best laid plans into disarray. 

Kyungsoo shook his head like it would somehow disperse the fog of desire that had settled over him. Jongin needed to sleep and heal so he would just have to get over himself and finish the job. As his hands busied themselves with their ministrations, his eyes couldn’t help wandering to the curved, flowing lines of Jongin’s back—the smooth expanse of skin that lay so close to him. 

_So temptingly close._

It was just as well he had to clean the arrow wound in Jongin’s wing right now. The task would require careful attention and it would be enough to get his mind off more dangerous things. It _had to be_ enough, damnit. 

“I’m going to clean the exit wound now,” he warned as he dribbled some water over the puckered pink disc that lay an inch or two above Jongin's left shoulder blade. Jongin really hadn't been exaggerating when he’d said the wound had scabbed over. It would have taken a demon hunter at least a day to recover from a similar wound. Veritas really hadn’t held back when he’d gifted his first angels with the enhanced healing powers they had clearly passed down over the years to their descendants. 

“Angels seem to heal faster than demons,” Kyungsoo observed. 

“One of the instructors at Battle Academy once told us that angels heal about thirty percent faster than demonhunters. We need to bounce back real quick because we need our wings at optimum to fight demons head-on.”

Kyungsoo gave him a skeptical look. “An exit wound like this one? It would’ve taken me at least a day for it to heal over like this. It’s been less than two hours since I shot you. Sounds like angels heal a lot faster than your instructor let on.”

“Nah. My instructor didn’t have it wrong. This kind of physical recovery should have taken me at least twelve to sixteen hours.”

“Then what the fuck is going on?”

“I’m guessing it’s the soulbond. Being near you is somehow speeding things up. It’s probably why I survived the impact, too,” Jongin said quietly. “In a way, I think you saved my life.”

“I almost killed you, you mean?! I shot you down, Jongin! You could have died because of me—how can you say that?” Kyungsoo was mortified.

“You were meant to shoot me down. How else would we have found each other?” Jongin smiled and it was a warm, sincere one. 

“Don’t be an idiot. I’m pretty damned sure it’s written somewhere that shooting an arrow at someone is not the way to pick them up.”

“Well, it works for me,” Jongin laughed. 

“You’re an idiot,” Kyungsoo grumbled before asking him to hold still so he could carry on cleaning his wounds.

Jongin was quiet, very, very quiet—only flinching from time to time as Kyungsoo's fingers gently rubbed streaks of dark red off of his skin. The wound hadn't bled much, thank fuck. With quick swipes, he washed every smear of dirt off of Jongin’s upper back. And just like that, Kyungsoo was done. He had even managed to complete the task without touching Jongin “inappropriately”, despite the angel’s earlier goading.

The great, golden wings that had been stretched out to their full extent earlier were now folded in repose—obscuring Jongin’s wide shoulders and his upper back. Jongin’s lower back, on the other hand, was far too visible and accessible. Painfully so. 

Kyungsoo's eyes wandered to the slim lines and lean muscles of his lower back, then the shallow indentations where his lower back flowed down to his. . .

Kyungsoo groaned inwardly. His fingers ached with the need to explore the elegant planes and curves of the angel’s body. He would not survive this night. There was no way he would and cause of death would not be lightning-related. Damn that angel. Almost as if he’d heard Kyungsoo’s inner thoughts, Jongin threw another challenge his way. 

“Will you clean my lower back too?” Jongin’s voice was soft, smoky. 

“I—” 

“Please?” 

Kyungsoo’s cock twitched at the slight note of urgency in the other man’s voice. He had no illusions about what would happen if he did as Jongin asked. He knew but the angel’s words kept echoing in his mind:

 _We could both die tonight, tomorrow, next week_. 

Like a haunting refrain.

And for the second time that night, Kyungsoo took a deep breath and stuck his hands into the fire.  
  


✾

  
  
Jongin had to force his muscles to relax as Kyungsoo's palms lit a trail of heat across his lower back. Jongin had been with other people over the years but he had never experienced such intensity of sensation. His control was close to snapping and he didn't even care.

The water should have felt cool against his skin. Soothing. But Kyungsoo's hands were anything but cool and soothing. Warmth trickled over Jongin’s back, seductive and irresistible. He didn't even realize he was leaning back into Kyungsoo's touch till it was too late, till he felt the tip of Kyungsoo's cock press against the base of his spine, felt Kyungsoo's hot breath fanning the sensitive skin at his nape. 

_FUCK_.

With all the stimulation from the hunter’s strong, hot touch, Jongin had been hard for a while now. He was hard but he didn’t even care that Kyungsoo was standing right behind him, and most likely getting more than an eyeful of his erection. He wanted the hunter, soulmark or no soulmark, and he wasn’t ashamed to declare his desire for his soulmate to see. 

When he’d felt the erotic press of Kyungsoo’s cock against his back, Jongin had experienced a powerful spike of sensation in his groin. A deep hunger had begun to form in his body, cascading through his cock and balls and spreading to his inner thighs, turning his nipples into hard peaks. Jongin was no stranger to lust or sex but this was like no other carnal experience in his past. Perhaps it was the soulbond but the need to mate with Kyungsoo was like an itch, a compulsion even—one that would not be denied. 

With that overwhelming impetus, he thrust backwards, catching Kyungsoo’s cock between his ass and the hard, flat planes of Kyungsoo’s stomach. His hands gripped Kyungsoo’s hips, holding him in place. He waited for Kyungsoo to protest or shove him away in anger. But instead of pushing him away, Kyungsoo slipped his left arm around Jongin’s waist spread the fingers of his right palm over his hip. Jongin wanted Kyungsoo’s body pressed right up against his own and he’d never been so frustrated that he couldn’t magic away his wings. 

“Don’t. . .don’t move too much or I might just fucking come all over your back.”

“That would be okay with me. Just saying.”

“That isn’t happening. Not right away, anyway,” Kyungsoo said tersely.

“So that means you’re going to come all over my back later?” Jongin asked, sounding very, very smug.

“Will you just shut up, angel,” Kyungsoo growled. His mouth was so hot and close to his skin that Jongin was getting goosebumps, his nipples and cock stiff with arousal. 

“Make me,” Jongin whispered as he twisted out of Kyungsoo’s grip and turned around. It wasn’t easy with his wings in the way but he managed. Their faces were tantalizingly close, the tips of their noses almost touching, breaths mingling. “Make me,” he said again, with the hint of a challenge in his voice. Kyungsoo looked like he was trying to decide whether to fuck Jongin or tell him to fuck off. Excitement and anticipation simmered in his gut as he waited for Kyungsoo to make his decision.

“Don’t ask for things unless you really want them to happen,” Kyungsoo warned and then Jongin couldn’t breathe as he stared into Kyungsoo’s eyes—eyes that were dark and intense with so much want. They were the last thing Jongin saw before Kyungsoo’s mouth slid over his own, wet and searing and inviting. As their tongues met, the silver arrow and golden feather burnt glimmering trails into their skin, sealing their soulbond irrevocably. Almost as soon as the soulmarks began to glow, Jongin was hit by a wave of pure desire, stronger than anything he’d ever felt before. 

He moaned as the pressure of Kyungsoo’s mouth and tongue grew more insistent. Then Kyungsoo was licking his collarbones and nuzzling his neck. Jongin moaned at the dizzying pleasure as Kyungsoo thrust forward impatiently. Jongin met Kyungsoo thrust for thrust, and as their cocks slid and rubbed against each other beneath the surface of the water, Jongin tried not to expire from the thick, sweet friction. Faster and faster, they moved, hips bucking in unison as they frotted. 

Panting softly, they kissed and explored each other’s bodies with urgent, greedy hands. Jongin writhed as Kyungsoo’s long fingers wrapped around him, devastating him with firm, sensual strokes. Jongin returned the favor, tugging sloppily at Kyungsoo’s beautiful, hard length. He wanted to spend hours exploring his soulmate’s body, wanted to map every inch of Kyungsoo’s smooth, pale skin, but it had been a long and traumatic night. Jongin wanted so, so much but his strength was ebbing fast. Finally, overcome with lust and exhaustion, Jongin and Kyungsoo made the last few desperate thrusts that brought them to shuddering orgasm. Groaning loudly in pleasure, Jongin collapsed into Kyungsoo’s strong arms.

“Ok, I’ll shut up now,” he said with a weak chuckle, his mouth resting against the hard curve of Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“You’re impossible,” Kyungsoo complained, giving a tired laugh of his own.

“I should walk but I can’t feel my legs. Need. . .sleep,” Jongin mumbled softly. Kyungsoo sighed before reaching to pick him up and hoist him over his shoulder. Slowly, he walked to the edge of the pool with Jongin draped over him. 

“I can walk,” Jongin protested half-heartedly.

“What you can do is stop fucking talking,” Kyungsoo instructed as he lay him gently down on the rock bank. It was testament to how completely drained Jongin was that he didn’t even have the energy to give some kind of snarky comeback. 

At some point, Kyungsoo lifted him again and moved him a short distance before laying him face down on a cool, padded surface. Now that he was lying prone on his belly, Jongin could finally let his wings relax and spread themselves out flat on the ground around him. 

Jongin’s eyelids began to flicker. “So tired.”

“Just sleep, angel.”

The last impressions Jongin had before he lost himself to sleep were the soothing sounds of Kyungsoo’s deep, husky voice, and the weight of Kyungsoo’s palm pressing down on the back of his hand. 

His soulmate’s hand on his, Jongin thought with a smile. _Kyungsoo’s_ hand on his.  
  
  
A/N: Hi everyone! I'm so so sorry for the long delay between the previous chapter update and this one. Real life has been extremely busy for me in the past seven months; plus I've also had to struggle with fic deadlines and the worst confidence crisis of my 4.5 year fic writing career. Long story short, I haven't had the time or the heart to work on this, and for that, I am very sorry ;;;

This chapter is entitled “Soulmates” because it focuses solely on kaisoo. Also, I wanted to explain why Jongin was able to set aside his worry for Sehun in previous chapters. The next chapter (or two, depending on how C8 progresses) will touch more on other characters, although kaisoo will be a significant part of the chapter too. If you have any questions at all about this fic, I'll be more than happy to answer them on [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/lotusk) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/caffelotus).

I want to thank all of you for your patience and understanding. I hope you will like this chapter at least a little bit and as always, comments and kudos go a long way towards healing a writer's heart.

All my love, Adele.


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